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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26303800">Out of Water</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pondermoniums/pseuds/Pondermoniums'>Pondermoniums</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Out of Water - Harringrove Mafia_au [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A sprinkling of coffeeshop things, A sprinkling of sugar daddy things, Alternate universe - Mafia, Billy Hargrove Being an Asshole, Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit mentions of gore and violence, Fluff and Angst, Homophobic Language, Lingerie, M/M, More characters and tags to be added as I go, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stalking, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve has pet bunnies, Substitute Teacher Steve, Swim Coach Steve, Trauma bond, swimmer Steve, traumatic injuries</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:55:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26303800</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pondermoniums/pseuds/Pondermoniums</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve wants out. He'll have to leave everything and every one behind, but he does it. Even if it means killing an innocent to pose as his dead body. Even if it explodes a war between the underground families or launches an investigation that comes too close to the illegal dealings of his friends and family. He does it.</p><p>And the joke of it all is that none of that happens. The war never starts and the government sleeps through another night. No one cares about the body who is fished out of the river. Except Billy.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Out of Water - Harringrove Mafia_au [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2242230</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>279</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Fishes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Billy Hargrove didn’t believe it.</p><p>When everyone in the house started moving all at once after some announcement that had yet to reach his ears, he still didn’t believe it. It was too weak a semblance of a trained formation in the time of crisis, but then again, no one ever really prepares for the heir apparent to be dead.</p><p>“<em>What?</em>”</p><p>He couldn’t remember getting into his father’s office but now those cold blue eyes stared back at him. “You heard me well enough. Harrington’s boy is dead. Blubbering queer went out on orders and had to get fished out of the river. He almost made it out to sea.”</p><p>Neil Hargrove deemed anyone with a penis a queer or faggot if they spent too long on their hair—his own son included—but Billy didn’t have it in him to feel the usual ice in his veins.</p><p>Because everything about Steve Harrington’s death is…wrong. Everything from the Harringtons barely discussing it, just wiping Steve’s history back into the river like he never mattered, to the fact that it was a <em>river</em> he died in. Steve was the best swimmer Billy had ever known. Considering how Billy spent his free time with divers and surfers any second he could get to a coast, that meant something.</p><p>Billy made a discrete point to have one on one time with the medical examiner, sees the body himself. Steve did a good job finding a lookalike. Dark hair the right length and thickness, right build, chiseled bone structure underneath the water bloat so it was easy to think it was really him.</p><p>The fingers were cut off. The teeth were gone. Damage to the body like Steve hadn’t chosen to be in the river in the first place. The coroner insisted the lungs were full of water, and other symptoms having to do with the bloodstream that proved drowning the actual cause of death…</p><p>But it wasn’t Steve. Billy had known Steve in so many ways. He knew the instant he saw the wrong hairline shape and how the constellations of moles and freckles were entirely off. He knew Steve was like a clock slowly but surely being wound and wound and wound up, just like him. Billy supposed his mistake had been in expecting Steve would explode in a loud, violent way, the same as he did. The same as all their fights broke out.</p><p>This? This was quiet. Calculated. Steve had been thinking about this for a long, long time. And Billy felt…something like betrayal at that. Something dark and fragile; a devastation that turned this way and that, looking at the meanness which had always been his outlet, or the sorrow and confusion which was perhaps more accurate to how he felt, but led him to no conclusions.</p><p>Never mind that the Harringtons knew their son wasn’t dead. Steve was as good as eviscerated to them for leaving without permission. It was just like them, too, to have a funeral and be done with him. Never mind an investigation as to who killed the heir of the city’s underground. Hell, Harrington was so integrated in above ground business, that he might’ve put on more airs at losing his son.</p><p>But no. Steve was gone, and everything fell into Billy’s lap.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Steve didn’t finish his last cigarette. Nicotine and tobacco were among the things he had ordained to leave behind. So he took a long draft from it as he strolled the homeless and drug addiction alleys, dumping a brown paper bag in one of the fires, and tossing his cigarette box to someone else along the way. If anyone saw the bag burn so quick that the human fingers sizzled and popped in the garbage embers, nobody squealed. They either didn’t care, or were too high to care.</p><p>Or maybe they were blissfully ignorant. A state which Steve would have traded his entirely life to be in.</p><p>Instead, he turned to walk along the river, glancing briefly at boats of all kinds, wondering which would be the one to find his dead body. A withering shred of humor considered taking on the name Tom Sawyer, but Steve put that on the back burner of his mind.</p><p>He threw his half-burnt cigarette into the river, eager to see tomorrow’s sunrise.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'll be honest, I wrote this extremely fast and have too many Harringrove stories to work on lol but I like it as a prologue a lot. Thoughts and comments are welcome &lt;3</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a><br/><a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Steven Sawyer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am once again making a fic where I can't decide between the eighties/nineties or modern times. So it's an overlap of them both. I also haven't decided on the cities. Originally I wanted Steve to go from Chicago to NYC (just because I'm partial to it), but it might make more sense for it to be the other way around (especially since Neil says "he almost made it out to sea" in ch. 1). I might just keep the cities nameless for fantasy whimsy. You can imagine Steve anywhere you want haha</p>
<p>Things should be made clearer as we go, but just to have things make sense now: Steve and Billy met in high school, but Steve didn't "die" until he was twenty-four. He's about 27/28 now.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Dustin, hey,” Steve exclaimed, setting the macchiato down while watching the kid wave at him from his place in line.</p>
<p>“Steve!” he chimed, which definitely rang in the small space. The coffee shop wasn’t even large enough to hold the freshman class he substituted now and then, but it boasted a high ceiling, lush blue walls, plants, and a whole glass storefront for lighting. Dustin’s toothless grin arrived at the wooden counter. “I found you!”</p>
<p>Steve cocked a hip after grasping a tumbler from the steel counter behind him. The place was equal parts thrifted and brand new, but he liked the glossy subway tile on the wall behind him, the black air vents above, the copper light fixtures, and the overall artsy-fart vibe. He got to work on an almond milk hot chocolate as he said, “You didn’t find me. I told you where my day job is. Are you even allowed to visit a sub outside of school?”</p>
<p>“The lines drawn between student and substitute teacher protocol are a little lax,” Dustin drawled, wobbling a hand in the air for emphasis. Steve just shook his head around a weary smirk. The kid could lie his way out of nearly anything. Sounding smart with confidence could take somebody a long way. Dustin Henderson often lacked the confidence part, but not around Steve.</p>
<p>“Ah huh. I won’t tell if you won’t,” he teased. “You want this frothy?”</p>
<p>“Uh. Always,” he scoffed. “The whole swim team already knows, don’t they?”</p>
<p>“Sure, but they’ve got better things to do than come into the city all that often. Speaking of, are you here for a reason other than bumming a cocoa off me?”</p>
<p>“I’m not—I brought money to pay for it!”</p>
<p>“I don’t see it,” Steve remarked, swatting Dustin’s hand holding the dollars away as he set the mug and saucer on the counter. “Make yourself comfortable while I finish the lunch rush.”</p>
<p>Dustin had no qualms about getting a free drink as he tried to walk and sip at the same time. Eventually Steve made a tea for a sweet-looking lady who had probably worn floral blouses her entire life, and watched her sit across from Dustin at one of the refurbished sewing tables. They both perked up when he came to sit next to Dustin.</p>
<p>“Hi, I’m Steven Sawyer. I substitute Dustin’s literature class sometimes.”</p>
<p>She eagerly shook his hand in both of hers, soft but warm. “Yes! Dusty goes on and on about you! You’ve been such a good help to him.”</p>
<p>“Not really,” he laughed bashfully. “Literature’s easy when there’s a movie made for every book. The kid’s a genius already.”</p>
<p>“It’s true,” Dustin agreed, earning a congenial head shove from Steve.</p>
<p>Mrs. Henderson chortled. “So much more is learned in school than whatever’s in the books. It’s really special, having someone older to look up to.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know what you mean. The kid talks circles around me. Maybe one day I’ll grow up talking like him.”</p>
<p>Dustin shook his head. “I still can’t believe you didn’t know what ‘cuckold’ meant.”</p>
<p>Steve began to giggle at the memory of that particular class. “You guys make way better insults than my school ever did.”</p>
<p>“It’s like the most trending insult, though,” Dustin said and imitated flatly, “You’re a cuck. Get cucked.”</p>
<p>“Dusty!” his mother rebuked.</p>
<p>“See? Even she knows.”</p>
<p>Steve’s giggles rolled over into outright laughter. “I’ve never had so much fun with Shakespeare. I definitely learn more from you guys than whatever I teach. So are you just here running errands, or…?”</p>
<p>Mrs. Henderson explained how Dustin had a science project, before passing off the topic to the kid himself. To be honest, Steve couldn’t care less about the project itself, he just liked having the kid around, and it sounded like he would be in the city pretty frequently for this assignment. Something to do with water chemistry with what Dustin called, an “urban concentration.”</p>
<p>“Can I use your shop as a rendezvous point?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, you can hang out here,” Steve assured while standing to pluck one of the cards from the holder on the counter, as well as a pen. He wrote big numbers on the back of the card as he spoke to Mrs. Henderson. “I’m here most days, but I’m assistant coach to the swim team three days a week. So that’s two afternoons and Saturday mornings I’m unavailable.”</p>
<p>“Oh, that’s more than accommodating. Thank you so much,” she began, but Dustin reached to intercept the card before she could grasp it.</p>
<p>Steve yanked it up out of his reach. “Don’t abuse it.”</p>
<p>“Can I text you during exams?” he teased.</p>
<p>“As if you’d get away with it,” Steve threw back. “You realize if another teacher squeals to the principle that you have my number, I’m fired and black-listed in the district, right?”</p>
<p>“Steve, I get it. I’ll only use it before and after school, all right?”</p>
<p>He sighed warily, “All right,” and relinquished the card. Then he burst, “But you can’t get caught, period. They’ll go through all of your messages, not just the ones you sent during class—”</p>
<p>“Where is this complete lack of trust coming from?” Dustin interrogated while he otherwise input Steve’s work and personal numbers into his phone. When he finally let his mother have the card he added, “Have you forgotten the Dosteovsky incident? We had to hide you in class because Miss Buckley came looking for you.”</p>
<p>Steve scrubbed his hands over his face. “Don’t remind me. She still hasn’t forgiven me for stealing her lunch from the teachers’ lounge.”</p>
<p>But Dustin laughed, immensely proud of himself as he glanced at his mother to further explain, “Taking turns reading <em>Crime and Punishment</em> made her U-turn right out of the class.”</p>
<p>Steve picked up, “Fine, but don’t underestimate how bored the permanent faculty is. They’ll snoop through your meta data if they know how.”</p>
<p>“They don’t know how,” Dustin snorted. Then, “How do <em>you</em> know what meta data is?”</p>
<p>“I’m just saying, if you think high schoolers gossip, you’ve never been in a teachers’ lounge. The main office is worse. Those old secretaries have nothing better to do.”</p>
<p>Mrs. Henderson nodded quickly. “Dusty’s orthodontist has two secretaries. I’m pretty sure the only common ground they have is speaking ill of the women who come in to flirt with him.”</p>
<p>“Gross,” Dustin grimaced.</p>
<p>“Mmhm,” she continued, sipping from the straw of her tea, “I’m pretty sure they’ve both slept with him. Hence the common ground. Can never trust the apple crate from which people judge others so readily. The wood’s rotten. ‘S only a matter of time before they fall, and they know it. That’s why it’s all quite sad. I always tell Dusty, you gotta be kind to people like that. They’re going through <em>something</em>.”</p>
<p>Her eyes widened on the <em>something</em>, like it was too audacious for her to contemplate. Steve pushed his bottom lip up into a contemplative and impressed inverted smile. Dustin, however, complained, “Mom, I never needed that. How am I supposed to hold my mouth open in that place now?”</p>
<p>When the bell on the door chimed, Steve returned behind the counter. It wasn’t long before Dustin brought back his empty mug and saucer on his way out. Mrs. Henderson bid farewell first. “We’ll be in touch, Steve! Thanks again!”</p>
<p>Dustin planted his forearms on the glass display case close to the door. “So Thursday? Can you give me a ride here after practice?”</p>
<p>“Dude, that doesn’t finish until, like, five-thirty.”</p>
<p>“Mom’s already gonna be in the city and can take me home. I just need water samples from three different points to start out my first hypothesis. Thursday?”</p>
<p>Steve’s head wobbled this way and that, nodding while he considered. “Thursday. Be at the pool by five, though. We finish early sometimes.”</p>
<p>“Awesome!” he laughed breathily, reaching up for a high-five. Steve clapped hands with him and swatted his dishtowel at Dustin’s shoulder on his way out, reaching over to buff the glass clean.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Kids. Steve had always been sweet on kids.</p>
<p>As Billy watched him high-five the teen, who for some reason seemed to be missing half his teeth, Billy felt a weight behind his eyes.</p>
<p>This Steve was different. <em>Sawyer</em>, he called himself. Billy had guffawed when he found it. Found him. But this Steve slouched, and pushed <em>glasses</em> up the bridge of his nose. He wanted to get his hands on those glasses, see if they were for show or not. But it wasn’t like the thin wire frames obstructed his face at all. Steve certainly made it look like he used them; paused to clean them before reading things and stopped everything to wash them off if steamed milk exploded in his face.</p>
<p>Clumsy. Steve was <em>clumsy</em>. He’d always had a certain…wobbly, jittery gait to him when he was excited, but this was different. This relaxed version sort of fell apart in a goofy way. Made Billy’s lips twitch in a smile he didn’t know if he deserved as he watched from across the street.</p>
<p>The thing about cities: there are always offices to lease. And Billy found one with a view down into Steve’s café. His windows were darkly tinted whereas Steve’s were not, and that…surprised him. Made him think Steve didn’t own the place, only worked there. Or Steve had grown soft during the almost four years since he “died.”</p>
<p>Soft…</p>
<p>Billy had seen his entire interaction with that kid and his mom. He’d find out their names and residential information later, but for now, his stomach ached while watching Steve work. How he’d refused the kid’s money. How his shoulders moved in his t-shirt when he washed the dishes in the sink beside the glass storefront…facing Billy but never looking higher than a quick survey of the street. Not that he’d be able to see Billy even if he did.</p>
<p>Billy couldn’t say for sure when he’d started to love Steve Harrington. A large part of him would deny it even now, but he knew it started when he’d first seen Steve in a t-shirt. It had been the first time they ever met.</p>
<p>Neil Hargrove—for all of his insults and downright punishments at how long it took Billy to get ready on a regular day—held him under severe scrutiny the day they were invited into the Harrington household. Billy had been woken up before dawn to shower and get dressed in the tailored suit his father chose, and the meeting wasn’t even until 2pm.</p>
<p>However that half of the memory always faded quickly from Billy’s focus, because the grandeur of the Harrington house had certainly woken him the hell up. Neil had refused him caffeine of any kind—claimed a seventeen year old didn’t need it—which he certainly didn’t when marble floors and frescoed fucking ceilings were the caves in which the Harringtons lived.</p>
<p>But all of it got outmatched by Mr. Harrington himself opening a door to an incredibly sunlit room. Billy, disobeying protocol to mind his own damn business, leaned over to see past his father’s body while Mr. Harrington called out, “Steve.”</p>
<p>A dark head rose in the light on the other side of a couch. The sounds of a television could be heard, but Billy resumed his place behind his father before looking further. Steve Harrington emerged from the sunroom in nothing but a white t-shirt and blue jeans.</p>
<p>All of them wore suits.</p>
<p>Steve wore a t-shirt and jeans.</p>
<p>An irony that Billy would not appreciate until later, is how all of the underlings, especially those younger than Harrington senior, tended to fixate on Steve’s hair. Sure, it was glossy dark brown; the kind with notes of chestnut and even a little gold in the right light. Mostly it just grew straight up out of his head until its own weight made it fall into whatever shape he sprayed it into.</p>
<p>But beyond the t-shirt and the wide, lean shoulders it encased, Billy saw eyes. Big, brown eyes. His brows hung low over them and a sharp, European nose should have equaled the same stern visage of his father.</p>
<p>Instead, Steve looked kind. Far kinder than anyone on <em>this side</em> of the world ought to look. He licked his lips and Billy’s eyes locked onto his cupid’s bow—a little wider than most—and then dragged over to the pair of beauty marks on his cheek, another one lower on his jaw.</p>
<p>Steve Harrington was <em>pretty</em>. Handsome, in the way men are, but as Billy swallowed dryly, he knew he was royally fucked.</p>
<p>“I’m going to have a quick word with your mother,” Mr. Harrington had excused himself, and shut the door between them and the sunlight.</p>
<p>“Neil Hargrove,” the man himself presented along with his hand.</p>
<p>Steve had shaken it easily, but Billy knew a fake smile when he saw one. He blinked, realizing the façade had moved over Steve’s face so fast he’d missed it. The kindness had left and something else now faced Billy.</p>
<p>“My son, William.”</p>
<p>“Billy, if it suits you,” he altered, more so snatching Steve’s hand out of the air instead of waiting for the offer.</p>
<p>“Suits me?” Steve had laughed. “I didn’t realize I got to name people.”</p>
<p>Billy’s father took his son’s chance to respond. “Billy is some months younger but is graduating in the same year as you.”</p>
<p>As if Billy was graduating on circumstantial whimsy. The man had filled all of Billy’s free time with extra coursework the day he figured out what grade the <em>Harrington boy</em> was in.</p>
<p>“I reckon the school will have quite the force walking through the halls, between the two of you. What sports do you play, Steve?”</p>
<p>Billy inhaled slowly, measuring what few molecules of patience he got from the luxurious foyer air. Of course his father would assume Steve would play sports instead of literally anything else. And he called him <em>Steve</em> right off the bat. As if the asshole had the right.</p>
<p>“Swimming,” he answered. “I like to swim.”</p>
<p><em>I like to swim. </em>Something about that wording ricocheted around Billy’s brain to this day, watching Steve pile cookies from the display case into a box for a patron.</p>
<p>“Do you have practice today?” his father had inquired. “I only ask because we had this meeting planned for weeks. You’re so casually dressed.”</p>
<p>Billy had looked everywhere but the two of them. His father would singlehandedly get their whole family killed for treating Harrington like any other shithead teen…</p>
<p>Steve was barefoot. Billy fixated on the jean hems around his ankles longer than was probably rational, setting a bad precedent for himself. This meant that Steve would be taller than him to boot—</p>
<p>“I spend Sundays with my mom.”</p>
<p>Billy remembered the exact feeling of his eyes snapping back to Steve’s face.</p>
<p>“Really? Back in California, we always distanced the women. Eventually the boys don’t grow as they should. They stay soft.”</p>
<p>It wasn’t a smile on Steve’s face, but a menacing ghost of one. Only the bob of his adam’s apple gave away any nerves. “I can’t speak for California, but I only behave if I get to see my mom.”</p>
<p>Billy knew with dangerous certainty that Neil Hargrove loathed Steve Harrington from that moment on. Steve, with his t-shirt and large eyes softly blinking with the confidence of being barefoot in his own house with his father opening the door behind him once again.</p>
<p>“Have you made your introductions?”</p>
<p>“Yes, sir,” his son chimed, but his voice retained its low, seething velvet tone. Easily mistaken for careless comfort.</p>
<p>“You’re dismissed, then. Don’t forget to see me before you retire for bed.”</p>
<p>Steve merely nodded while back pedaling into the sunlight. “Afternoon, Hargroves.”</p>
<p>Billy had stood rooted to the marble while the fathers began striding toward Harrington’s office. But Billy stayed to watch Steve skip into a faster stride toward the couch, which he vaulted over and earned a woman’s laughter and scolding.</p>
<p>“Rewind! I missed it!”</p>
<p>A lackey of some kind must have been on the other side of the door, because it soon shut, leaving Billy alone in the dim foyer.</p>
<p>No, Billy couldn’t say he <em>loved</em> Steve on that day. But he wanted him. Wanting was simple. Love was something Billy had never quite understood, never been given the luxury of learning it.</p>
<p>Steve got it. The same way Steve got the house and the right parentage. Sundays with his mother. Swimming, because he liked it.</p>
<p>But here he is, a dead man making coffee. In a different city so far away from every luxury he’d been born into.</p>
<p>Billy felt amusement as he moved his fingertips across his lips. It was a perfectly reasonable way to go, walking in and ordering a coffee. When to do it, though, that required some thought.</p>
<p>During an afternoon rush, when Steve can’t run away?</p>
<p>At the end of a shift so Billy can have all the time he wants?</p>
<p>Neither felt quite right, but Billy knew himself even if he didn’t know the man across the way as much as he thought he did. Either way, Billy needed to think of <em>something</em>, before his own impatience won out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A little domesticity before the Freight Train that is Billy Hargrove rolls into Steve's life haha</p>
<p>Thank you all SO MUCH for your response to chapter 1! I definitely didn't expect that much feedback so fast. But I loved it so much that I shirked all responsibility to write chapter 2 lol Thank you for enabling me.</p>
<p>
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</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Thursday</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve held his bagel sandwich in his mouth while he shuffled out of his car. The only thing worse than the clog of traffic holding someone in the city were the small town, suburban drivers who thought the speed limit was ten below the number on the sign.</p><p>But Steve was here and only fifteen minutes late. He jogged through the pool entrance of the gymnasium, held open by the swim captain. “Thanks! Sorry, I’m late, guys.”</p><p>“Actually, it’s a good thing you’re late,” the captain said. He was a stocky guy with bright strawberry blond hair, and as Steve set his backpack in the bleachers on one side of the pool, he realized the student still wore a t-shirt and shorts. A quick look around told him the team was taking their sweet time through stretches and hadn’t started actual warm-ups yet.</p><p>“What’s going on?”</p><p>The captain sighed, rubbing his neck. “Daniel’s being held after class.”</p><p>“<em>Again?</em>” Steve exclaimed before an epiphany struck him. “Hold the fort here. When he’s back, start your regular warm-ups.”</p><p>Steve took a moment to rewrap his sandwich and doubled back towards the school on the other end of the property. He got lucky and caught a student leaving the correct side of the building, who held the door for him to get to the band room quickly. He didn’t bother knocking. He knew he was expected.</p><p>“Buckley.”</p><p>“Sawyer,” she greeted, deadpan despite her polite—venomous—smile.</p><p>Steve strode further into the room and locked eyes with the student before tilting his head back toward the door. “Get outta here, buddy.”</p><p>He gave the kid’s shoulder an affirming push while Miss Buckley countered, “We weren’t finished.”</p><p>“Yes, you were. You’re still just pissed I stole your lunch,” Steve remarked with a glance at the hesitating student. “Go. The others are waiting for you to start warm-ups.”</p><p>They could hear his shoes clapping the tile in his haste to be free of Robin Buckley’s wrath. Steve confronted her with a hand on his hip. “You can’t hold a student for half an hour after school’s ended!”</p><p>“It hasn’t been that long, although I did expect you to move your ass a little faster.”</p><p>“I was late,” he said and tossed the sandwich to her. “Can we call it even, please?”</p><p>Refusing to answer before she inspected the goods, she unwrapped the parcel and leveled an unimpressed look at him. “There’s a bite out of this, dingus.”</p><p>Steve moved his hands up to hold his elbows while he searched for an answer. “Yeah. Well. The bagel was made like two hours ago, so it’s a balance.”</p><p>“Balance,” she snorted. “I’ll call it balanced after you hand over whatever swanky coffee you brought with you.”</p><p>“My hands are obviously empty.”</p><p>She rotated to pick up her messenger bag off of a chair, leaning her head to get the strap on her shoulder. “I’m sure it’s with your stuff then. To the pool?”</p><p>Steve blew a sharp breath through his teeth. “You’re relentless.”</p><p>She chuckled on her way past him, shoving the band room keys against his chest so he could lock it behind them. He twirled the key ring over his finger during their walk to the pool. Heads perked up from within the water, but no one seemed really surprised. Everyone knew Buckley and Sawyer had an ongoing animosity-friendship-thing. Half the teachers wanted them to get married. Robin had almost vomited in the school parking lot when Steve teased her about it by getting down onto one knee.</p><p>Some of the team had overheard Steve accuse Robin of flirting with the single moms, and Steve had outright booted somebody off the team after a warning for saying <em>fag</em> didn’t register for the second time his mouth slipped.</p><p>“Two strikes and you’re out with Sawyer,” the captain said to new members at the start of the semester, but Steve knew something must have spread like wildfire because the team doubled in size.</p><p>“Congrats,” Robin had told him in the teachers’ lounge, legs crossed under a magazine while she broke one of his cookies into morsels. “You’re enabling gay awakenings.”</p><p>“Do you think it’s because I dance too much?”</p><p>Robin had looked into his genuinely worried eyes and threw her head back with laughter. “<em>No</em>, Steve. It’s because you put the fear of Bisexual God into the swim team. Honestly, I didn’t think you had it in you.”</p><p>So Robin waved back to the boys in the water before settling next to Steve’s abandoned thermos. She unscrewed the lid after feeling the chill on the outside, and sipped. “Mm! Is this that green latte thing you’ve been laboring over?”</p><p>“Don’t get me started,” he huffed, and promptly started, “Green and black tea, jasmine tea, coconut milk, and lemon juice. And other stuff. I blacked out.”</p><p>“Well it’s good. Thanks.”</p><p>“Hmph,” he grunted, pursing his lips like the preppy brat Robin was <em>certain</em> he had been at one point in his life. The navy corners of his polo collar sticking out of his teal sweater confirmed it. The only things that betrayed him were the various states his hair seemed to take. Today, since he was late, the locks somewhat wildly flowed around his head, regardless of his repeated attempts to push it behind his ears.</p><p>He went on to complain, “You could’ve just texted me, you know. You can’t hold a kid so long he misses the start of sports practice.”</p><p>“Yeah, because you’ve been answering my texts, you coward,” she scoffed. “You realize kids need to actually put some effort into their other classes, don’t you? You coaches are all the same.”</p><p>“Robin,” he sighed, hands on his hips. “He can’t just show up late and jump right into exercise. They have to warm up or else they’ll get injured. Then I’ll have some pissy parents on my ass. You’re a band nerd, I’d think you’d understand the importance of warming up.”</p><p>Her brows lifted at him. “I’m almost impressed, dingus. How do you know musicians warm up before playing?”</p><p>“Noneya.”</p><p>“Don’t you dare—”</p><p>“None ya business.”</p><p>“If this latte wasn’t so good, I’d throw it all over your stupid sweater.”</p><p>However she looked ready to murder him after he tapped on the bottom of the thermos, and her overcorrection made tea spill down her chin. He just donned his whistle around his neck with a cocky saunter in his step. “I’m the lifeguard here, so don’t distract me.”</p><p>The team tread water below them with mixed reactions of anxiety and humor until someone voiced, “Coach, I’m pretty sure your ass is winding up in this pool before we’re done.”</p><p>“Her discount at my shop plummets every time she throws me in there,” Steve smiled. “But we’re taking it easy today since Saturday will be a doozy. Five laps. Backstroke.”</p><p>The whistle shrieked only to be met with a kid exclaiming, “Five? Coach, that’s a race.”</p><p>“<em>Around</em> the pool. Not in your lanes. Preferably now, please.”</p><p>Various responses of, <em>Holy shit</em>, groaned among them but the captain was kind and set an easy pace at the front. Meanwhile, Steve interlocked his fingers and twisted his palms to the ceiling while stretching his arms over his head.</p><p>Robin chimed, “Why the backstroke?”</p><p>“Opens up their chest. Saturday will be full of cardio.”</p><p>“How is it you put good thought into this but then you can’t count?”</p><p>“I can count just fine. I messed up your change one time—”</p><p>“You gave me three quarters when my change was seventeen cents.”</p><p>“It was a bad day!”</p><p>Robin snickered over her beverage. “Have a lot of those?”</p><p>Steve wiggled his head like a brat. “I’m allowed to have bad days—”</p><p>Their attention turned toward the sounds of doors opening, where a familiar silhouette came through the glass double entrance. Steve glanced at the large clock on the cinderblock wall and met Dustin halfway. “You’re early.”</p><p>“Yeah, well. I forgot the librarian hates me.”</p><p>Robin snorted. “Why?”</p><p>“I, uh—” Dustin cleared his throat while Steve wrangled his backpack off his shoulders to dump beside his own in the bleachers. “—might have sixteen books checked out.”</p><p>“Sixteen?” Robin balked.</p><p>“What’s wrong with that?” Steve said while otherwise keeping track of the team’s lap count.</p><p>“You’re only allowed three at a time.”</p><p>“Look,” Dustin argued, “I have urgent business to research. The computer lab’s in the middle of upgrading their systems, and the library’s computers are still in 1999. I don’t have the convenience of having sixteen tabs open. So it’s books.”</p><p>Robin scrutinized him with narrow eyes like she couldn’t decide to be impressed or not. “How’d you even get sixteen books out of there without the metal detectors going off?”</p><p>“Magnets,” he shrugged.</p><p>Steve ran his tongue over the inside of his bottom lip while he chuckled. Robin remarked, “Steve, how many children are you friends with, and are they all criminals?”</p><p>Dustin laughed at the face Steve sent her.</p><p>* * *</p><p>“Let’s get dinner and then find your samples.”</p><p>“You don’t have to walk me around. I’m fourteen,” Dustin said as Steve held the parking garage door for him.</p><p>“Yeah, because I’m letting a kid wander the city alone,” the adult snorted. Steve peered up at the sky, the urban streets around them rich with a warm, springtime musk. “The rain’s bringing cold with it. Let’s be fast.”</p><p>“You paying?”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, I’m paying. Cheapskate.”</p><p>Dustin skipped into a perkier stride. “My favorite nacho place is up on the right.”</p><p>“How do you eat nachos with no front teeth?”</p><p>“Carefully.”</p><p>As soon as they entered the hot restaurant, however, Steve’s glasses fogged up. “Ugh,” he complained briefly before something soft touched his hand.</p><p>“Here,” Dusting offered a microfiber cloth. “My mom’s reading glasses smudge all the time.”</p><p>“Thanks,” he replied, cleaning and squinting at the overhead menu. “What’s good here?”</p><p>“Everything—but don’t do the hot sauces unless you wanna die.”</p><p>“I don’t mind hot stuff,” Steve disregarded, and ordered the medium spice burrito. They sat at one of the Spanish-tiled tables and Dustin eyed the rice burrito and heap of guacamole with judgmental scrutiny while Steve took his first bites. “Can you stop eyeballing me while I eat?”</p><p>“Dude, how are you not on fire right now? The level one spice destroys me.”</p><p>“Higher tolerance, I guess.”</p><p>“You’re unreal.” Dustin shook his head and yanked a tourist map out of his jacket. Steve stared with full cheeks at the paper quickly taking up the surface of the table. “Okay. I’ve got all the spots marked where we can get samples. Tourists love poisoning ducks with bread, so—”</p><p>“Excoose me?” Steve fumbled around his food.</p><p>“Ducks can’t actually digest bread. You’re supposed to feed them popcorn.”</p><p>Steve openly gaped at him. He swallowed thickly. “How do you know all this?”</p><p>“You know my mom fosters animals,” Dustin reminded. “Speaking of, how are the bunnies?”</p><p>“Oh, they’re great. I finally got a new hutch commissioned.”</p><p>“Commissioned? Why not just buy one?” Dustin asked while meticulously piling toppings onto a chip.</p><p>Steve shook his head as if the very idea didn’t sit right with him. “The plastic ones don’t smell right.”</p><p>“Yeah? What else does your schnoz say?”</p><p>Steve’s jaw slid to the side, less than amused. “That you’re trying to use hairspray. How’s that going?”</p><p>Dustin’s hand flew up to his baseball cap. “You don’t know anything.”</p><p>Steve kept his smirk to a minimum. “Why don’t you ask your mom to help you?”</p><p>Dustin slumped and took a long sip of his lemonade. “She thinks my curls are fine the way they are.”</p><p>“You do have a good head a’hair,” Steve agreed and added around another ungraceful mouthful, “Why y’wanna ‘ange it?”</p><p>“Because all I can do is have a bowl cut mop or a mullet.”</p><p>Steve swallowed and moved his tongue over his front teeth. “Then cut it short.”</p><p>“No, because then I’ll look like Justin Timberlake without frosted tips.”</p><p>A smile flashed on Steve’s face but he insisted, “You gotta stop holding yourself to straight-hair standards, man. You don’t even know how many girls want your hair.”</p><p>“What? No they don’t,” Dustin scoffed with a mildly vicious bite to his nachos.</p><p>“I <em>promise</em> you,” Steve said with a finger pointed at the table. “Pay attention at the next school dance. Look at how many girls get perms and shit. They’ll be upper classmen, but…maybe higher standards could be good for you.”</p><p>Dustin frowned at Steve’s smirk. “What’s grade got to do with it?”</p><p>“Look, no offense, but freshmen haven’t got a clue. They’re all so desperate trying to fit in that they all fry their hair on their straighteners. I’m telling you, junior year will be an enlightening time. You’ll all think of yourselves as tough shit, and then you’ll just be exhausted seniors desperate to get out. By then, you won’t give a shit about hair.”</p><p>Dustin absorbed this like worldly wisdom. “Then why do you still style your hair?”</p><p>“No, no, there’s a difference,” Steve defended, wielding a guacamole chip. “This glorious mess is for me, not anybody else.”</p><p>“Ahh…” Dustin absorbed. “You ran out of mousse, didn’t you?”</p><p>“Alright, it’s after school hours. Your brain needs to turn off. We got like an hour before the sky opens up.”</p><p>Dustin giggled over his food and conversation moved on to other things.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Billy flicked the lock without looking behind him. The empty coffee shop stood around him, smelling faintly of grinds, sugar, and newness. Wooden blinds had been lowered over the storefront to mark its being closed, but a ghost light behind the counter cut through the blue, rainy evening; the Edison bulb glowing orange in the darkness.</p><p>There is something…<em>real</em>…about standing here. In Steve’s space. Billy’s fingertips drifted over the wooden counter that shared so many of Steve’s fingerprints. He left the place in pristine condition on his way out—to go to the school he <em>coached</em> for. There was something ironic about that which Billy hadn’t decided whether he liked or not. Hadn’t yet pieced together if the taste in his mouth was savory or bitter.</p><p>The more he observed Steve Sawyer, the less Billy felt like he knew him. He drank tea instead of coffee, woke up before dawn to bake instead of oversleeping, and…as far as Billy had <em>not</em> seen, he didn’t smoke. Not a single cigarette all week. This asshole was doing his goddamn best to be some healthy nobody, and Billy felt like he was rotting in that black-tinted office. Festering from the inside out as he watched his oasis on the other side of the street.</p><p>For not the first time, nor even the thousandth, Billy wondered what his younger self would say. What that boy in the Harringtons’ foyer would think of him now, acquiring the business that collected the coffee shop’s rent just to get a key. Skulking in here just to breathe the same air. Dragging his stepsister all the way across the country, tearing her away from what little happiness she had with her friends so he could be close.</p><p>Billy hoped some part of his younger self would be happy at the prospect of being in love. If this was love. Obsession, more like, but Billy was too far in it now. He could feel his younger years growling at him, itching and deeming him pathetic and lovesick. Chasing after the best sex he’d ever had with a guy who’d wanted to be gone so bad he died without taking him along for the ride…</p><p>Well that was it, wasn’t it?</p><p>Steve had thought of it first. And he did it without Billy—</p><p>His heart thrashed in the steel cage of his ribs and sternum at the sound of a key grating into the lock. For all that glass, the door was some antique wood piece that inhibited Billy from seeing who…</p><p>Steve swung around the door, half soaked through and pushing the door to make sure it shut without too much rain getting into the shop. Turning around, his gaze immediately went behind the counter—and snapped onto Billy.</p><p>Ghost light reflected off all the droplets on Steve’s glasses. Dozens of ochre-orange diamonds sagging down Steve’s nose to reveal wide eyes that knew Billy.</p><p>Of all the things to contemplate, Billy’s mind landed on how he’d forgotten Steve’s stature. So long apart, and then so long spent looking down on him from afar, Billy <em>forgot</em> how tall and wide Steve stood—</p><p>Reversing his steps with enough grace that Billy didn’t even notice his arm had gone behind him to open the door before he was swinging himself right the hell out of there.</p><p>The door slammed, somehow loud in the storm, and Steve’s broken silhouette rushed on the other side of the blinds.</p><p><em>This could’ve gone better</em>, Billy thought. Then like an out of body experience, remembered who he was and bolted after Steve into the storm.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>May I present to you: the disaster twins. A distinct lack of braincells and yet stuff happens.</p><p>Things will pick up more in the next chapter, but I'm enjoying the short chapter format~ Some things that will be explained in the next one: why Steve's went to the shop and where Dustin went, and how Steve has two bunnies as pets :). But for now~ that damned mistress, Cliffhanger.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a><br/><a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Thump</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve sprinted into the diner next door. He gripped the bell on the interior door handle so it didn’t ring, ripping it off its wire as he fell to the side, hiding underneath a window regardless of patrons’ stares. Both from their blatant gazes as well as his own narrow view of the glass door, Steve knew when Billy had passed by. His window of opportunity was miniscule: he had to wait for Billy to be far enough away, and he had to be quick enough before the bastard doubled back.</p><p>Which was now.</p><p>Steve set the bell gingerly on a table, close enough for a baby in a high chair to grasp, but by the time the place filled with noise, Steve was already gone. The coffee shop door had been left unlocked. Steve twisted the deadbolt behind him before he realized it was a moot endeavor. Billy had a key. He had to have a key.</p><p>At the risk of leaving wet prints behind him, he ran for the back exit. He knew those alleyways. The narrow serpentine streets barely wide enough for petite delivery trucks to drive through were his way home—</p><p>Home?</p><p>He couldn’t go home. His apartment was compromised. If Billy knew where he worked, he had to know where he lived. He knew—the school—Christ—</p><p>Steve all but collapsed in the recessed doorway of another business. He felt like he would vomit. The all-over tingles under his skin, especially in his throat, threatening to pitch his stomach onto the asphalt and maybe faint for good measure.</p><p>This was not what Steve had wanted when he came for his fucking umbrella. He always left it in the shop, and the shop was an easy pit stop after dropping Dustin off at his mom’s office.</p><p>Dustin.</p><p>Robin.</p><p>Steve overlapped his hands over his mouth as he slid down the wall beside the fire doors, willing himself to focus on the cold of the rain. When that failed, his palms felt the biting grit of the asphalt as he doubled over, surrendering himself to the dry heaves of his body trying to rid itself of the panic, of the…familiarity.</p><p>Maybe that’s why nothing came up. He didn’t taste bile, and like some cruel joke, he felt an all too familiar numbness enclose those dangerous tingles.</p><p>He couldn’t leave the city. He was compromised.</p><p>Well…he <em>can</em>. But he doesn’t want to.</p><p>He doesn’t want to leave and try not to wonder if something happens to Dustin. To Robin. To his teenagers. They were just kids. His coffee shop boss doesn’t deserve a flake employee after everything she did for him. And Steve has two rabbits waiting for him at home, so…</p><p>He goes home.</p><p>All he can do is hope that Billy—and anyone else—fell for the inaccurate address on his employee paperwork.</p><p>Steve had been careful, so careful. Made a ghost bank account so long ago and slowly transferred every spare cent, and sometimes whole months’ worth of allowance into it. Paid cash all the way across the country. Made two more accounts over the years and transferred again before killing off the paper trails…</p><p>His steps felt heavy and too light as he climbed to his apartment. He slid his key into the locks as he had done over the course of two leases.</p><p>The door opened directly upon the entryway and living room. The apartment is dark. When Steve shuts the blinds on the other side of the room and turns on the light, it’s empty. A petite place from the nineteen-twenties, half of its walls had been stripped down to the brick and painted white. The hardwood floors were original and picked up every sound imaginable. The place was well overpriced for the square footage.</p><p>And he loved it.</p><p>Much like the coffee shop, he had filled it with a mixture of refurbished and new. The closed fireplace housed his pile of books and cooking magazines. The corner adjacent to the entryway was a piss poor excuse for a kitchen, but it held all of his mismatched rice bowls and mugs on the drying rack since he didn’t have a dishwasher. Stylish IKEA furniture clashed with retro, European-inspired stuff, and Steve still had yet to properly hang so many flea market paintings that just stood on the floor, leaning against the walls…</p><p>None of it was out of place.</p><p>The wall between the living room and bedroom used to have arched French doors, which had long since been removed. He checked the corners, wrenched open the closet and bathroom doors, checked in the shower. Empty.</p><p>By then, his pair of bunnies were rattling the doors of their hutch. A double-decker mansion of a thing, it took up the whole spans underneath the bay window. The fresh wood still permeated the air. Steve particularly liked the viewing platform off to one side so the rabbits had a place to sunbathe, as well as the ramp leading off of it.</p><p>“Okay, okay, guys…” Steve breathed like someone might hear. He still needed to check the place for hidden microphones. But first, he opened the door for a brown rabbit with a white tail to use the ramp, and the other door where a black one thrashed for release before Steve set her on the floor. He felt the latter stepping over his feet and nibbling his pant legs while he simultaneously searched and cleaned the hutch. He kept the thing spick and span, and turns out, microphone free…</p><p>Steve froze.</p><p>Someone was picking his locks.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Billy’s anger made him clumsier than normal. He was furious, but however livid he felt, he was equally impressed. And if he could stop swinging between the two, maybe he would have the goddamn deadbolt open by now.</p><p>The solid, almost wet sound of a well maintained lock sliding out of the way pushed a sigh of accomplishment out of him. With his hand on the knob, though, Billy froze. An extremely high probability existed that a gun awaited him on the other side of this door. That is, if Steve even came here. At the speed with which he’d lost Billy, the apartment made sense—unless he had a safe house Billy had missed. Which was…careless of him, but not nearly as careless as failing to anticipate somebody coming to the coffee shop after closing hours.</p><p>Billy pushed a sigh out through his nose. He’s already here, and the door is open, so he swings it wide.</p><p>Steve, with his hands on his hips in the middle of the living room, almost makes Billy grin. <em>There he is. That’s the one I know.</em></p><p>“What the hell is wrong with knocking?”</p><p>Steve spoke measuredly, almost quiet. So considerate of the neighbors. Billy swept his eyes briefly over the place, but didn’t see much as he huffed, “You can still outrun me, I’ll give you that.”</p><p>He was still soaking, too. They both were, which means Steve hadn’t been here long. As Billy strode forward, Steve backpedaled a curved path toward the wall so it was easy for Billy to pin him there. Too easy. Steve didn’t fight back when Billy’s hands gripped him under the armpits to shove him against the wall and search his torso. His hands traveled down to Steve’s hips. His palms slid all the way around the outside of Steve’s thighs before stopping close to the apex of his legs. Wet lashes lifted so his eyes met Steve’s incredibly close gaze since those glasses had slipped down his nose.</p><p>Steve isn’t armed.</p><p>“Don’t you think you’re taking this civilian thing a bit far?” Billy’s voice sank low in his throat. Velvet. “Even normal people have guns.”</p><p>Patience run out, Steve knocked Billy’s hands off. “Get out.”</p><p>He huffed a mirthless laugh. “I don’t think so…”</p><p>A soft, clipped thud turned Billy’s head, searching the apartment as a hesitant fear fringed with rage bloomed in his chest. “Who’s here?”</p><p>The place was modestly sized, but Billy couldn’t see anyone. When Steve refused to answer, Billy shoved his fingertips into Steve’s chest. “Who’s he—”</p><p>
  <em>Thump. Thump.</em>
</p><p>Billy frowned. That wasn’t a human sound, but it definitely came from inside the apartment, and close—</p><p>Steve shoved him off again, forcing Billy to retreat a step. By this point, blue eyes had trained on the hutch by the window, and the black eyes staring at him from one of the doorways. Its body jerked the same instant that curt <em>thump</em> hit the air, the rabbit kicking the floor of the hutch while another one burrowed furiously in the hay within.</p><p>“Do you have…rabbits?”</p><p>Steve blocked him from the hutch, a solid hand on Billy’s sternum pushing him another step—until Billy held his ground and threw Steve’s hand off. Those ridiculous glasses slipped off and fell on the hard floor. They didn’t break, surprisingly, but Steve’s entire focus went down with them, so Billy intercepted it with a foot on the glass. Steve’s outreaching fingers halted against the telltale crunch.</p><p><em>“You don’t push me,”</em> Billy purred.</p><p>Steve stood up straight, and there he was. Sharp nose and…sad eyes.</p><p>Wait.</p><p>That wasn’t right.</p><p>“What part of, ‘get out,’ don’t you understand?”</p><p>Nothing about this was how it was supposed to go.</p><p>Bold, dark brows knit together beneath contrasting caramel blond hair. “Steve…what are you doing?”</p><p>Billy’s eyes bore into his, searching and, disobeying his pride, imploring. Of course he hadn’t expected them to be able to pick up right where they had swerved off the road, but… Jesus, they had known each other for ten years. Hadn’t they?</p><p>With the noise of the rabbits behind him, Steve shook his head. A small movement. “I’m not who you’re looking for.”</p><p>Billy pushed a short breath through his nose. His lips pressed together in an impertinent smirk. “I knew something was off with you that day—”</p><p>“I need you to <em>leave</em>.”</p><p>He stepped right into Steve’s space; more than he already was, anyway. “<em>Don’t</em> play stupid with <em>me</em>. <em>Sawyer</em>.”</p><p>Steve reared back, his features pinching in the slightest way that Billy almost missed it. “I don’t have to play anything. You just broke into my apartment after breaking into my workplace—”</p><p>“I have every right to walk into your workplace—”</p><p>“It was closed! The door was locked!”</p><p>“I have a key, dumbass! Your lease goes to me!”</p><p>The transformation was slow, but empty features soon harbored terror. For a cold second, only Steve’s eyes moved, searching. For what, Billy had no idea. “Did you forget how we do things?” he scoffed. “Own the land and the bank, and everything in between obeys our puppet strings.”</p><p>“For how long?”</p><p>“What?” Billy winced.</p><p>“How. Long. Have you been here?” Steve grit.</p><p>Billy considered the truth to not be the best option when Steve looked as pale as hypothermia. Instead of the months behind, Billy focused on the months ahead. “My sister’s doing high school here. She just started her freshman year.”</p><p>Billy would have to consider later on whether Steve fearing him or hating him were the better option. For now, as one side of Steve’s mouth twitched, hatred would do just fine.</p><p>“Why the hell would you relocate your sister for <em>high school</em>?”</p><p>“This city happens to boast one of the top ten high schools in the country,” Billy chimed like he were reading a pamphlet.</p><p>Steve squinted at him. “So? It’s top five for homelessness—”</p><p>“You know why I’m here,” Billy finished. He would have let that sit between them, but the animals in the room were only getting louder. “Could you make your bunnies shut the hell up?”</p><p>“They’re agitated because you’re here,” Steve accused. “They don’t like loud noise.”</p><p>“Hell of a place to live,” he returned snidely. He gave the room a once over again, this time noticing how it doubled as a kitchen. A tiny kitchen. And <em>there</em> was the bedroom, and there was shit all over the floor… Jesus, this was really all there was. Steve had severely downgraded.</p><p>“Just get out!” Steve waved an arm towards the door. “There’s nothing for you here.”</p><p>A rude sound hissed between Billy’s teeth. “Yeah, alright.” The glass and metal of Steve’s glasses crunched a second time as Billy pivoted toward the pathetic excuse for an entryway. “Then while you’re playing barista, I’ll be around. You still know how I like my coffee, even if you won’t admit it. The name’s still Hargrove.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>You have.....NO IDEA what it took to not make Billy lay a smooch on Steve in this chapter, but I knew from the very beginning, when I decided that Steve wears glasses, I was like...... Those things are gonna break. I just know it-- *Billy breaks glasses* Me: Dude, why the hell would you do that???</p><p>So I thought that having a douchy chapter AND a dubious-consent kiss would be too much lol Also, I do read every one of your comments. They are the air in my lungs, and I'm so so thrilled that you guys have been enjoying the story so far &lt;3 &lt;3</p><p>Not to spoil or anything, but the bunnies' names are Toony and Loony. Steve calls them the Looney Tunes &lt;3 because their zoomies are like Taz and Road Runner, and he calls them both Bugs endearingly~</p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a><br/><a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Friday</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I wrote this very quickly because when it flows, you flow, you know?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve started with the glass on the floor. The hardwood had survived the decades and wars, it endured Billy’s designer boots. He did that for the rabbits, but the water was the bigger issue. After dumping his clothes in the kitchen sink, he donned a stretched out long-sleeve and pajama pants. While shuffling his feet over various towels, he scoured his apartment as best he could. He found nothing to suggest surveillance equipment.</p><p>He paused when he felt weight being pulled behind him on the towel. He crouched to let the brown rabbit smell his fingers. “Hi, bugs…hi.”</p><p>The rabbit nibbled his hand and nuzzled its chin on his knuckle. He hunkered down, sitting on his heels and petting the creature making lethargic laps around his body. The black one arrived to set its front paws on his knee, standing up to sniff his face before wandering elsewhere.</p><p>Eventually he dumped the towels into his thrifted wicker hamper, and collapsed on the bed with his phone. He texted Robin: <em>I have a monumental favor to ask you. I’m sorry in advance.</em></p><p>Bless her, the response came almost immediately: <em>I’m not hiding a body.</em></p><p>Steve: <em>It’s worse. I need a ride on Saturday.</em></p><p>Robin: <em>….what time does your swim practice start?</em></p><p>Steve: <em>9am</em></p><p>Steve: <em>On the plus side! Traffic dies down by then.</em></p><p>Robin: <em>That doesn’t mean anything since I have to GET you and drive BACK here!</em></p><p>Robin: <em>You realize, there and back, that’s almost 4 hours of driving????</em></p><p>Robin:<em> ???????????</em></p><p>Robin: <em>You’re extremely lucky teachers spend weekends grading, istg</em></p><p>Steve: <em>Right, you’d be up at 6 anyway.</em></p><p>Robin: <em>Steve wth did you do that you can’t drive?</em></p><p>Steve: <em>My glasses broke.</em></p><p>Steve: <em>I mean…I CAN drive.</em></p><p>Steve: <em>But I shouldn’t.</em></p><p>Robin: <em>Fine fine, don’t cause a friggin wreck. Can you at least get to the edge of the city? The last subway station on the south side? That’ll save us at least 20 minutes.</em></p><p>Steve: <em>Yep! You’re a lifesaver, Robin &lt;3333</em></p><p>Robin: <em>I’m getting free drinks for the rest of my life.</em></p><p>Steve: <em>Drinks. Bakery’s closed unless yer paying.</em></p><p>Robin: <em>What about the rest of the week?</em></p><p>Steve: <em>Head coach can do his job and I don’t have any sub hours scheduled. Hopefully my prescription can come in that fast.</em></p><p>Robin: <em>Can they do some kind of expedited thing? Shipping, at least?</em></p><p>Steve: <em>I’ll find out first thing tomorrow. </em></p><p>Steve: <em>See you Saturday &lt;3</em></p><p>Robin: <em>Ugh. &lt;3</em></p><p>The black rabbit jumped onto the bed as he texted his boss to let her know he would need to see the optometrist as soon as they opened. He would be finished with the bakery by then anyways, but she might have to be on time to open the place for customers.</p><p>While Steve lay prone, both rabbits settled around him: the black nestled beside his face in the crook of his neck, and the brown directly on his sternum. His boss did get back to him eventually, with the assurance that either she or her son would be around to open the shop with him. Steve liked the guy well enough, so he made sure his alarm for dark and early was on, and turned his lights out.</p><p>* * *</p><p>It felt like minutes since he had put his phone down when he was picking it back up again. This time, with a wrist that twanged painfully, making him drop the device.</p><p>
  <em>Great…just great.</em>
</p><p>Scrubbing a hand over one of his eyes, Steve carefully placed the invisible black rabbit on his other side so he could get out of bed. He should’ve showered last night but trying to listen for the wreath of Christmas bells he kept on the door took precedent. The shower proved ideal now anyways, to wash off all the sleep he didn’t get. Both rabbits sat on the plush mat beside the vanity. Steve knelt down while opening one of the drawers; ears perked up at the familiar sound of their dried carrot bag.</p><p>“It’s one of those days, huh?” he murmured, breaking the orange strip in two for them. The vanity counter was mostly devoted to a bed for them, which he placed them on while he readied for work. Considering the finer details of his reflection were blurred out, he didn’t take long this morning.</p><p>“Alright, bathroom, you two. No peeing in the carrier.” It was just shy of a marvel that Steve had housetrained the rabbits in the first place; evacuating on demand was a high order. He lined the duffel-shaped carrier with pads and gave the black one a blueberry for actually doing her business before loping down the ramp. He zipped up the mesh windows and added a blanket before cramming a handful of dark greens into the carrier. He made sure he had all he needed, and locked the door behind him.</p><p>For all the good it would do.</p><p>He moved the carrier strap to hang diagonally from his other shoulder when the wind bit right through him. Holding the rabbits close, he strode as quickly as he could to the coffee shop. They wouldn’t be allowed in the kitchen, but the open area of the shop was free terrain. Without glacial wind, the shop was almost warm as he laid down more pads and opened the carrier. Behind the counter, he found a thick roll of washi tape covered in rabbits; he braved the outside one more time to wrap a strip of it around the doorknob.</p><p>“Okay, bugs,” he sighed upon locking the door. He tried not to flinch as he walked over the spot Billy had stood. He bent to wiggle a finger over the brown bunny’s fur as she sniffed the new floor. “Get rowdy.”</p><p>More under his breath, he said on his way to the kitchen, “And if you see any cords that don’t belong, chew right through ‘em.”</p><p>Readying the shop mostly consisted of baking the dough proofed the day before. Steve velcroed a brace around his wrist after washing his hands, and set the oven temperatures. The bread and bagels were the nightmare products, since they took the longest and required the most meticulous detail, but cookies had to be last; for those lucky first customers to get something still molten in the center.</p><p>When the kitchen door opened, Steve’s head jerked up, but he just as quickly exhaled relief. “Jonathan, hey.”</p><p>“Hey,” he smiled tiredly. “I saw the tape when I passed by. Can I see them?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Steve threw a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re just free-roaming out there. I set cleaning stuff out just in case.”</p><p>“Uh, awesome,” Jonathan said in his nervous way. It had taken Steve a while to learn that’s just how the guy operated, but not a whole lot actually bothered him. “I checked the nearest eye doctor. They open in forty-five minutes.”</p><p>“Really?” Steve perked up.</p><p>“Yeah—Well, they don’t open publically for a little while, but mom left a message on their machine. Somebody’s always there super early.” He nodded conversationally as his gaze fell to Steve’s arm. “Is your hand okay?”</p><p>Steve flexed his fingers over the floured countertop. “Yeah, just an old injury. I broke my arm and it never bounced back.”</p><p>Jonathan passed behind him to the shop front. “I’ll say hi to the Loonies and be in here to help.”</p><p>One of the ovens blared its timer, and Steve went to take out the bagels. Jonathan soon returned with freshly made teas. “Do you still do tea over coffee?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Steve laughed breathily. “Thanks for remembering.”</p><p>“Sure.” Jonathan washed his hands and slapped the towel over his shoulder as he came to stand beside Steve. “I’ll knead the stuff. You can get the glazes ready. So…are they doing okay? You haven’t brought them in for a while.”</p><p>Small saucepots landed on the stove as Steve narrated, “They take a while to recover from loud noises. A kid I teach, his mom rescues animals in her spare time, remember?”</p><p>“Mmhm,” Jonathan nodded. He scooped sourdough loaves into lined baskets and set them in the massive steel fridge for tomorrow.</p><p>Steve continued, “They came from some lab. I don’t know what they were used for. I’m still learning what sets them off. Like, loud noises, and cooked caramel.”</p><p>“Caramel?” Jonathan repeated curiously.</p><p>“Yeah, just…random sweet stuff. My floors are wood, though, and my glasses falling made them clingy this morning. I’ll take them with me and drop them off on my way back here.”</p><p>Jonathan made a sound of acknowledgement before saying, “Rabbits are used for a lot of testing. It could be anything.”</p><p>“Yeah. I don’t know,” Steve shook his head. Grasping two pairs of tongs, he moved the bagels to a cooling rack and stirred a brush in the pot. “Don’t really wanna know, to be honest. How’s your photography stuff?”</p><p>“It’s good! It’s going well. I’m interviewing this weekend to maybe teach a class at one of the colleges nearby. Oh—did mom tell you about some…change in management or something with the property lawyers?”</p><p>Steve’s movements slowed. He shook his head, “Nope.”</p><p>Jonathan shrugged. “Just an email that came in a while ago. Nothing’s different, really, the payments are all the same. Mom just worries over everything.”</p><p>“She’s put a lot into this place.”</p><p>Jonathan flashed a smile. “You both have. We wouldn’t have been able to keep this place if it weren’t for you.”</p><p>“Oh, shucks,” Steve huffed. “It’s not like I had anything to lose… Your mom’s the nicest boss I’ve ever had.”</p><p>“Why do you still call her your boss?” Jonathan chuckled. “You’re partners over this shop.”</p><p>“No, no, your mom tells me to do something and my feet hit the ground running,” Steve laughed nervously, but Jonathan met it with his own understanding mirth.</p><p>Conversation flowed back and forth between them, only broken off by the harsh oven buzzers going off and when Steve took trays into the store front to fill the display case. The brown rabbit had posted itself on one of the booth seats running along the opposite wall; the black one meandered behind the counter when Steve was there. He eventually set her on the counter, framing her in with his arms while he hunched over a clipboard of admin lists.</p><p>“Steve?” Jonathan called on his way in. “The doc called my mom back and said you can come in any time.”</p><p>As if sensing his haste, the bunny climbed onto his shoulder, making him hold onto her butt while he quickly sanitized the counter. “Are you good here? I shouldn’t be long,” he rushed, closing up the carrier with two occupants inside.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s no biggie. You can leave them here, if you want? I don’t really know what eye doctors think of animals in their offices.”</p><p>“I’ll go ahead and take them back to my place. They should be okay for the rest of the day. If I’m gone more than two hours, I fell in a sewer or something. Thanks, Jonathan!”</p><p>* * *</p><p>Movement in his periphery turned Billy’s head down to Steve locking the coffee shop’s door behind him. Billy had seen that odd duffel bag before, but now he realized what it carried. Of all the pets for Steve to have, rabbits had been far removed from Billy’s consideration. A cat, sure, or even an obnoxious small dog. Even a rat.</p><p>Or a girlfriend.</p><p>Billy had certainly weathered through many of Steve’s brief relationships. The ones he had in the beginning. Before Billy.</p><p>He couldn’t look back on those with much severity, however. Steve had always preferred civilians over the…what they called, <em>The Emporium</em>. Fancy synonym for a brothel. But it wasn’t a place for trash on the street to walk into. The women and men—all mysteriously in the same decade of age—were treated damn well. Room and board, any food they could possibly dream of, and regular, <em>strict</em> medical care.</p><p>Billy recalled the first time he’d frowned over Steve’s having a <em>girlfriend</em>. Not a <em>favorite</em>. The news had come from Mr. Harrington cornering his son in his office, not even bothered if Billy, Tommy, and their fathers were in earshot. The office was more like a suite, of course, but Mr. Harrington had come right out and said, “What were your results yesterday?”</p><p>Billy had been…extremely obviously…staring at the younger Harrington during this time. He didn’t care about any school test’s results. Steve either aced it or the teachers got paid to mark whatever grade the Harringtons wanted. Except, Steve sighed and droned, “Fine. I’m clean.”</p><p>“Was she a virgin?”</p><p>The strain in Steve’s voice eased with every word he pushed out. “My criteria are different than that. You have the results on your desk already. Why ask me?”</p><p>Billy’s gaze had flicked to the medium-sized envelope perfectly aligned with the edge of the massive desk. Mr. Harrington replied, “I haven’t opened them yet. I wanted to know what you’d say. You’re more confident in these results than your test scores.”</p><p>“Yeah, well. It’s not physics.”</p><p>Billy had the privilege to overhear the same inquiry four months later.</p><p>“You were late.”</p><p>“I got there.”</p><p>“Late is still late.”</p><p>“Not if they got what they need. Am I clean, or not?”</p><p>Billy might’ve laughed if he didn’t feel a mixture of pity and envy. Having a parent up your ass is never great, but to be able to have such a casual volley without getting smacked for disrespect…Billy would piss in a lot of cups for that.</p><p>Tommy had nudged Steve’s arm in the corridor as they strode over the luxurious, white carpet. The Harringtons required shoe removal, both in their house and upper floors of Mr. Harrington’s business. It was humbling, and…oddly domestic. “You’re still with this one, right? Why’d you get tested again? She cheat?”</p><p>“Nope,” Steve sighed without looking back. “Every four months, since I was fourteen.”</p><p>“Shit! Who’d you lose it to?” Tommy asked eagerly. Hagan had known Steve since that time. Billy, of course, hadn’t. He listened in silence.</p><p>“Nobody. Not until I was sixteen.”</p><p>Billy’s head tilted and Tommy met his equally puzzled expression. He reiterated, “Every four months?”</p><p>“Every four months.”</p><p>Billy couldn’t be sure whether it was because Steve dated civilians, or if his father just wanted his dick on a leash. It had certainly thrown Billy when his own father decided to get Billy into the ring of regular testing. In a land of bullets and poison, they took sex testing to a strangely high level.</p><p>But Mr. Harrington seemed to be the only one to take Steve’s relationships seriously. Billy had watched and waited, mostly just obeying orders and learning about the bastard who would be his boss one day.</p><p>He didn’t expect to <em>like</em> Harrington. Of course he <em>wanted</em> him since that first moment in the foyer of his house, but a person could do a lot without <em>liking</em> the other party in question.</p><p>Except Billy learned something about Steve and himself when Steve’s longest relationship smacked him right across the face. Billy heard it clear across the school cafeteria. The whole school did, what with how quiet the tables got. After the girl ran off to probably cry in the bathroom, Steve had just strolled over to where Billy and Tommy sat, dumbfounded.</p><p>Of course the girl didn’t know who Steve really was. If she did, she never would have looked him in the eye, let alone laid a hand on him.</p><p>Steve’s cheek bloomed redder and redder as he handed Tommy half his lunch and stared out the windows at the winding river in the distance. Tommy peeked at Billy before asking, “You wanna talk about it?”</p><p>Steve shook his head once, stoic eyes meeting Tommy’s. “Just missed a family dinner. Meant a lot to her, I guess.”</p><p>Billy frowned at him. “You were supposed to meet her parents?”</p><p>Steve only shrugged. “I didn’t check the date.”</p><p>Tommy coughed a laugh into his hand so he didn’t spew food. “Seriously? You’re meeting her parents and forgot? Dude.”</p><p>Billy didn’t buy it. Harrington Junior doing something as dumb as not looking at his calendar? Wasn’t leadership material, and it wasn’t what anybody in Tommy’s, Billy’s, or all the rest of their families’ would follow after Harrington Senior abdicated.</p><p>Billy ate quickly to stand and walk with Steve to their next class. “What day was the dinner?”</p><p>“Yesterday.”</p><p>Sunday. Steve stood up her entire family on Sunday.</p><p>So Billy learned two things about Steve and one thing about himself: Steve never valued any girl over his mom, and he didn’t inflict any punishment on this one. She didn’t so much as get her books knocked out of her hands, let alone a failing grade for smacking Steve Harrington in the face.</p><p>And Billy, well…Billy learned he liked Steve a whole lot more than he’d been aware. Because he’d never felt inclined to knock a girl off some high bleachers until he saw Steve’s watery eye over that red cheek.</p><p>He now frowned through the tinted window at that figure rushing over the pavement. Where in the world was he going? Steve was a long way from the end of his usual shift…</p><p>Billy swiveled out of his chair, and used his personal stairwell that opened onto the street. He cinched a heavy, black pea coat that fell almost to his knees around himself while following Steve…to his apartment.</p><p>Billy waited discretely outside and sure enough, Steve appeared without the carrier but with no shortage of speed. Where in the world was the water to put out the fire under his ass?</p><p>When Steve finally knocked on the glass door of an optometrist’s office, Billy supposed he oughtn’t be surprised. Steve <em>did</em> have a pair of recently broken glasses.</p><p>So Billy waited.</p><p>…. And waited.</p><p>Until he realized that picking out a fake pair of glasses shouldn’t take this long. He nearly left the bookshop where he stood beside the same display table for so long. He’d turned the store clerk away enough times to get himself kicked out for loitering by the time Steve finally left the eye doctor’s.</p><p>A mechanical bell sang from a speaker somewhere when he pushed through the door. A woman’s voice quickly called, “I’m sorry! We’re not actually open yet!”</p><p>Billy gave her his best smile. Her autumn-red painted mouth stayed open in a blatant look of surprise. Good. “I’m not a client. I actually wanted to foot the bill of the man who just left. Kind of curious what he picked out, too.”</p><p>Justified suspicion eclipsed her eyes, but she hid it reasonably well. “Friend of yours?”</p><p>“Long time,” Billy purred. “Steve and I go way back. And to be honest, I’m the reason he needs new glasses. So I owe him this. Might even throw in an extra pair, if I can take a quick look?”</p><p>“It’ll have to be quick,” she gestured to the front of the store where plastic lenses modeled the various frames. “Mr. Sawyer paid for fast shipping, which means I need to log the information within the next half hour.”</p><p>“Oh, I’ll be fast,” Billy smiled back at her, already amongst the shelves. “I know what he’ll wear.”</p><p>Billy had no idea what Steve would wear. “Which of these has he already chosen?”</p><p>The woman appeared at his side and gestured to a pair just like Steve’s previous ones. Big. Round. Wire frames. Not a bad choice, per say, but given Steve’s notoriously <em>bad</em> taste in shirts, Billy expected—</p><p>“This whole side of the store caters to specialty prescriptions.”</p><p>“Specialty,” Billy repeated. “Unpack that for me, would you?”</p><p>“Certain eyes need certain lenses,” she said like he should’ve known this already. “Mr. Sawyer’s prescription entails him to lenses that have to be a little heavier.”</p><p>“I thought the technology existed to make lightweight, strong lenses.”</p><p>“It does, but Mr. Sawyer opted for the more affordable option.”</p><p>Billy’s eyes slid briefly to those frames on the shelf before locking onto her. “And if a generous someone did pay for the lighter option?”</p><p>“Then anything in the store is up for grabs,” she smirked. “I would recommend using the frames he chose, though.”</p><p>Billy’s tongue clicked as he said, “I agree. So get these but with the lightweight lenses. I’ll add…these. Can you do prescription sunglasses?”</p><p>“Absolutely,” she confirmed, marking the serial number of the Ray Bans on her clipboard.</p><p>Billy picked up a pair of frameless lenses and she marked them down. If Steve insisted on glasses, Billy wanted him to at least have the option of not obstructing Billy’s view.</p><p>While she rang up his total at the counter, Billy leaned to see the numbers in the prescription chart—</p><p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Shit.</em>
</p><p>Steve’s eyesight was fucking awful.</p><p>Billy handed his credit card over blindly. But not nearly as blind as Steve had apparently been this whole time. How the hell had he never known that Steve wore contact lenses? And why did Steve opt for glasses now instead?</p><p>Billy leaned his forearms on the counter, laying on the bratty charm as thick as his lashes. “Is there any way to make the glasses arrive faster?”</p><p>“Of course,” she shrugged, focusing hard on the computer screen. “We offer two-day rush.”</p><p>Billy blinked. “But he didn’t take it.”</p><p>She grimaced delicately. “It’s rather expensive.”</p><p>“So am I,” he grinned.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Billy: Pay attention to me!!!!<br/>*breaks glasses*<br/>Steve: I literally can't.</p><p>Achievement unlocked: sugar daddy Billy.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a><br/><a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Halfway</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was going to make this a long chapter so that we could have Billy in it but today's a doozy and Harringrove is my seratonin. So this is more like Ch. 6 part 1.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Careful!”</p><p>The drinks only sloshed a little bit, considering Steve all but crash landed into the car. “When did the curb get there?” he huffed before pointing the brightest damn smile at her.</p><p>Robin pushed his cheek to face the windshield. “It’s too early for that. Where’s my caffeine?”</p><p>Steve held up one of the cups. “Double shot.”</p><p>“Bless.” She took a moment to remove the lid, slurping the spillage on it and testing the temperature. “Steve?”</p><p>“Yeah?” he chirped from where he situated his backpack between his feet.</p><p>Robin held up her cup. “Why did you bring me the smallest size?”</p><p>“You said drinks for life. You didn’t say what size.”</p><p>She slumped against her seat, shaking her head at the window. “Small print bastard.” As she pulled away from the curb and merged back into traffic, she glanced at him toggling the buttons for more heat in the car. “Did you sprain your wrist again? I swear that arm is made of glass.”</p><p>“Yeah, has been since I broke it,” Steve bemoaned. He did, in fact, break his arm in the past, but the sprain came from pushing against Billy. She didn’t need to know that, though—</p><p>“So how did you break your glasses?”</p><p>Steve took the time to slurp his tea before answering, “Fell right off my face. Nothing to it.”</p><p>“Ah huh. And the sprain?”</p><p>“All I have to do is look at it too hard and the tendons give up.”</p><p>She laughed breathily as trees replaced buildings along the road. “Is there a reason you refuse contact lenses?”</p><p>“I don’t like picking something out of my eye before bed. I’m not even sure if my eyes will tolerate contacts again. I slept in way too many before I switched to glasses.”</p><p>“Fair enough. Do I have to be your assistant today or can I spend my time grading in the bleachers?”</p><p>“You’re gonna want to be high up in the bleachers,” Steve warned.</p><p>She glanced at him and said flatly, “I think I know why, but why?”</p><p>The answer came with cheers from the hoard of teens when Steve dumped a sack of water polo balls into the pool. The team eagerly pulled the goals out of storage to situate on either side of the pool. Steve had put them together from pvc pipes, volleyball netting, and water noodles for extra flotation. For a craft project, they cost way too much, but the team’s cardio endurance skyrocketed from games of water polo.</p><p>For a batch of groggy teens at 9am, they filled the room with raucous noise. More than once, Steve got doused with shrapnel water. He kept the games short to keep the teams on rotation—and to keep arguments brief—but ninety minutes flew by. He blew his whistle, and the team caught, or swam to, the noodles he threw into the water with the order, “Circle up!”</p><p>Robin perked up at Steve seating himself on the end of the lowest diving board. The team waded around him, cooling down with easy, treading water.</p><p>“You look good without the specs, coach,” one of them said.</p><p>“Thanks! I can’t tell,” Steve grinned. The kids around him laughed. “The next time you see me, though, I should be able to see you guys properly.”</p><p>“You’re not coaching this week?” the captain openly complained.</p><p>Steve gestured to the bleachers. “Robin’s been cool enough to give me a lift today, but until my glasses come in, I’m out of commission.”</p><p>“That’s shitty,” one of the younger team members grumbled.</p><p>Steve leaned back to plant his hands behind him. “I should be around next Saturday, and once your coach knows you did cardio today, the week should be easy.”</p><p>“It’s never easy,” the captain huffed mirthlessly. “It just gives him a reason to make us do aquatic fartleks.”</p><p>Someone asked, “What in the world’s a fartlek?”</p><p>“It’s the interval training—”</p><p>“It’s like when you jog around the corners of the track and sprint the long parts. Over and over again. It’s awful.”</p><p>“We’ve actually had to do those on the track before. It feels like your heart’s exploding.”</p><p>Conversation got cut off by someone blowing water out of their noodle and hitting a teammate square in the face. Steve settled them down and prompted, “Tell me about your Fridays. Highs and lows.”</p><p>Robin’s brows pushed together inquisitively, watching and listening to the teenagers unpack what made their weeks decent or miserable. Group projects with people they didn’t know or like, relationship trouble or, “Dude! You finally asked him out! Congrats! Will he come to our swim meets?”</p><p>The youth in question blushed profusely and avoided all eye contact. “I don’t know. I still gotta figure out what to do for a date.”</p><p>“You can ask him,” Steve supplied.</p><p>“I can’t ask him! I started this, I have to make the date.”</p><p>“You’re totally allowed to ask what he likes to do,” Steve laughed.</p><p>“Wait, what about with girls?” another boy asked.</p><p>“Girls too.”</p><p>“But girls always want, like, someone to know what they want and to…handle things? Somebody help me, I’m not saying this right.”</p><p>Steve waved a hand to negate that. “All of you are young enough to be figuring out that a relationship really is the two of you meeting each other halfway. If you like someone, and they don’t meet you halfway, sure it can still be fun, but that’s not long-term material. If she gets judgy for you asking her what she wants to do on a date, she isn’t on your level. A person worth interacting with will know you’re being considerate of their feelings and interests.”</p><p>Steve shook his head and added, “But this is college-level stuff. You guys just need to worry about using condoms without your parents freaking out. Guys and girls.”</p><p>Plenty of jeers and laughter echoed around the room before Steve corralled them enough to prompt, “Monday. Highs and lows.”</p><p>Robin smiled down at her various students’ handwriting. Steve wasn’t necessarily a well of consoling advice, but he was a pair of ears and a kind voice who made them laugh and encouraged the team to talk to each other.</p><p>“Oh man, I had that teacher last semester. Talk about the symbolism. Instant B+, at least, I promise you.”</p><p>“How do I get my chem partner to talk to me? We’re stuck with each other all semester.”</p><p>“Bring a box of Gold Fish or something to share with them.”</p><p>“What if they’re gluten-intolerant? I’ve never seen her eat anything.”</p><p>“Then buy those gluten-free mini muffins from the store. Everybody loves a good bribe.”</p><p>Steve snorted, earning curious looks as he confirmed, “They sure do.”</p><p>* * *</p><p>“Do you mind waiting? I like to stick around until all the kids have left. In case someone needs a ride last minute.”</p><p>“I don’t mind,” Robin said as they dumped their stuff in her backseat. Over the roof of her car, she asked, “Do you do that every Saturday? The therapy circle, thing?”</p><p>“Every other practice or so,” he said as vehicles blasting radio pop music pulled out of the lot. “I’m usually around for Saturdays and at least one mid-week practice, so…yeah, Saturdays.”</p><p>Robin combed her hair off her face and held it in the gentle breeze. “That’s really good. Not a lot of schools provide that, unless it’s a facility catering to so-called, ‘problem children’ or teen moms.”</p><p>Steve shrugged while patting his fingertips against her roof. “I remember being some shitty teen. Adults don’t take you seriously because they just see a kid with hormones instead of a brain. That doesn’t mean they don’t have hearts. The heart needs a lot.”</p><p>Robin huffed an incredulous gasp. “<em>Where</em> did you pick that up?”</p><p>Steve set his chin on the flat of his hand. “I’m a fountain of random wisdom, Buckley.”</p><p>“You’re a dingus who happens to be good with kids.” They watched the last car leave the lot, and waved to the student in passing. “You ready?”</p><p>“Yes, please. I’m freezing my ass off—”</p><p>“STEVE!”</p><p>“Oh, look,” Robin sang as Steve rotated to squint at the unmistakable—albeit blurry—silhouette of Dustin running across the school’s front lawn. “One of your children is here. And he brings a friend.”</p><p>“What’s he look like?”</p><p>“I don’t know. Dark hair? Longer front teeth in his smile. I see him in the art studio sometimes.”</p><p>“Oh, that’s my boss’s kid,” he waved.</p><p>“Does anyone ever accuse you of being a Sanderson sister? The one who sings? Because you’re like the Pied Piper for children.”</p><p>Steve threw a deadpan look at her as Dustin clutched his knees, heaving. “Can we—hahh!—get a ride?” He stood up to hold his chest. “Holy shit—Hey, where are your glasses?”</p><p>“I’m flying blind so you’ll need to ask Robin. Hey, Will. You okay?”</p><p>“Hi, Steve,” the kid beamed. “Hi, Miss Buckley.”</p><p>Robin interjected, “Dare I ask, what you two are running from?”</p><p>“We just wanted to catch you before you left,” Dustin said, already opening the backseat. “I’ll explain on the way. Long story short, our friends are inconsiderate douche bags.”</p><p>Steve sent an apologetic look at Robin over the car as the vehicle rocked with energetic freshman wrestling with their backpacks.</p><p>Sometime later on the highway, Robin replayed, “So you were supposed to meet at the school for the broadcasting club, but only you two showed?”</p><p>Will added, “Dustin’s being hypocritical. He has a girlfriend too but it’s long distance.”</p><p>Steve rotated to look at the kid in question. “Since when?”</p><p>“Since summer camp, Steve. Keep up.”</p><p>Eyebrows raised, he turned back to the road. Dustin continued his rant, “It’s bullshit! They’ve been like this ever since I got back! They’re always blowing us off for their girlfriends.”</p><p>“Did I hear something wrong,” Robin said, “or are the girls members of the club too?”</p><p>“They are,” Will replied.</p><p>“So they’re all blowing us off!” Dustin threw himself back against his seat only to lunge forward again. “Honestly, it’s not about the club. The club’s a joke since it’s just the five of us. But we always split a box of cookies at Will’s house afterwards. It’s tradition and more importantly, it’s sanctified.”</p><p>“I hate to break it to you, buddy,” Steve began, “but high school’s going to give you and your friends different priorities. It sounds like your friends just got there first.”</p><p>Dustin crossed his arms and shook his head out the window. “They’re gonna burn out so fast. I know it.”</p><p>“Who?” Robin couldn’t help but ask.</p><p>“Mike Wheeler and Ellie Hopper,” Will supplied. “All they do is make-out nowadays.”</p><p>“Ah, youth,” she sighed.</p><p>Dustin grumbled, “Freshman year blows.”</p><p>Steve dug through his backpack as he chimed, “I told you, man. Junior year, it’s gonna be a whole new playground.”</p><p>Will startled a little at the crash of paper wrapping in the back seat, but then exclaimed, “Are these from my mom?”</p><p>“Left overs from yesterday,” he confirmed. Will and Dustin tore into the cookies while Robin fixed Steve in a glare.</p><p>“Those were with me in the bleachers the whole time?”</p><p>“Small print. Only drinks.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I just really like the idea of Hopper giving Ellie a southern-style name like Ellie Jane, but people just call her Ellie.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a><br/><a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Poltergeist</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Halfway part 2 haha</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Joyce,” Steve called. In her flustered way, she rotated and followed his finger pointed down to her son on the other side of the counter.</p>
<p>“Hi, mom!”</p>
<p>“Will! Your brother’s picking you up. What happened?”</p>
<p>“We finished early. I texted him, he knows.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” she relaxed. “Well then, make yourselves at home. Hi, Dustin, how’s your mom?”</p>
<p>“She’s great, I’ll tell her you asked,” he grinned toothlessly. Steve ushered them to an unoccupied table; Will took the booth side and Dustin sat in the chair. After washing his hands and tying his apron, Steve carefully plucked a pencil from Joyce’s bun to mark off the tab of the drink he started working on—</p>
<p>“Hey, dingus.”</p>
<p>“Hey,” he cooed at Robin arriving at the counter. “You’re not leaving?”</p>
<p>“It took me forever to park. I’m in the city, might as well hang out. Can I get a slice of sourdough with strawberry cream cheese?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Steve began to ring her up when he felt Joyce beside him. “This is one of the teachers at the school, Robin Buckley.”</p>
<p>“Hi, nice to meet you,” Joyce reached over to shake her hand. “What d’you teach?”</p>
<p>“I’m an adjunct for the music classes and I substitute French.”</p>
<p>Joyce voiced wistfully, “I always loved the humanities. My boys went in such different directions. My eldest, Jonathan, is practically a chemist with his photography, and I thought Will, over there, would be an artist, but it turns out that’s just a hobby. He loves anything that can be designed on a computer. Video games are as much for study and fun with that boy.”</p>
<p>“I wonder if Steve had anything to do with that,” Robin accused.</p>
<p>The guy peeked over at them from where he was putting together Robin’s plate. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”</p>
<p>“Please. The kids always get hyped when Mr. Sawyer is in a classroom. Everyone knew about the new substitute teacher because he figured out how to connect a game console to the projector.”</p>
<p>“That was Dustin, actually,” he laughed quietly, setting her plate down with a glass of water and mint leaves. “I can spot busy work a mile away. I bargained that if they got the main assignment done in twenty minutes, they could spend the rest of the class racing each other. Who’s wrong here?”</p>
<p>Robin shook her head. “You can’t spell Wednesday but you can make kids do the impossible.”</p>
<p>“Everyone messes up Wednesday!” he retorted as she walked away.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>“Are you sure you want to stay at my place?” Steve worried as he and Joyce worked on closing the shop. Dustin’s mother had long since picked him up and Jonathan had arrived to take Will home and get ahead on cooking dinner.</p>
<p>“I need bunny time,” she declared while packing her school things into her bag. She glanced up at him with a frown of scrutiny. “Why are you so worried? Big Sunday plans tomorrow?”</p>
<p>“No,” chirped with a headshake. Before he could say more, Joyce locked the cash register and heaved a sigh to prelude her announcement.</p>
<p>“I think we’re good here!” she beamed. “I’ll see you Monday. Keep me posted about your glasses. I don’t want you working too many hours when lack of daylight makes everything look the same.”</p>
<p>Steve gasped theatrically. “Are you saying I can sleep in this week?”</p>
<p>“No, but maybe you can leave early,” she smirked. “There’s different traffic in the evenings versus the morning.”</p>
<p>“Ah, yes,” Steve sassed on his way out with Robin. He held the door for her so he had the time to say, “More likely to get run over by a pedestrian with better insurance rates, than a city bus who won’t pay a dime.”</p>
<p>“There ya go!” Joyce sang as she followed behind Robin.</p>
<p>“There we go,” Steve snorted and waited while she locked the shop. “Goodnight.”</p>
<p>“Night, you two!”</p>
<p>Steve hiked his shoulders and trotted to move their pace along in the cold while Robin remarked, “She’s really nice.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Joyce is the best,” he scoffed jovially.</p>
<p>“What are we ordering for dinner?”</p>
<p>“What are <em>you</em> ordering us for dinner? I can’t actually cover a lifetimes of drinks without some kickback.”</p>
<p>“Then I’m ordering the spiciest Thai food in existence.”</p>
<p>Steve laughed into the upturned collar of his jacket. “Sounds delicious.”</p>
<p>Robin spent the rest of the walk on the phone with the restaurant, and hung up in timely order to berate Steve’s shaky hands trying to manage his keys. “I’m not one to bully the handicapped, but shouldn’t unlocking your door be second nature?”</p>
<p>“You’re always mean when you’re hungry,” he accused. He slotted a key into the doorknob—<em>Love of god, Billy, if you’re here, use the fire escape—</em>He turned the deadbolt, and opened the door—</p>
<p>Robin shoved past him with open arms. “Hello, ladies!”</p>
<p>The bunnies were already pawing at the doors of their hutch. Steve slowly removed his outer garments, looking around. Nothing was different.</p>
<p>Robin lay on the floor, the black rabbit grooming her face, while Steve knelt on the floor to meet the brown one. Both rabbits soon ignored them in favor of wandering the apartment as the humans took turns using the shower. Robin answered the door for the food, and they settled on Steve’s bed, in Steve’s pajamas, with take-out boxes around them and a tray of dishware between them.</p>
<p>Robin teased, “I love how you put rice into a bowl for a semblance of class.”</p>
<p>“I love how you insist on using chop sticks without knowing how.”</p>
<p>“I’m getting better!”</p>
<p>“Yeah, we’ll see when I strip the bed and rice falls out of it,” he said, the same time the black rabbit jumped onto the bed. She loafed on the end of the mattress while the brown eventually settled on Robin’s lap and the humans toggled console controllers. It may not have been the most practical for Steve, given that the bed looked directly into the living room, where the television was mounted on the wall, but he made do.</p>
<p>Robin transferred the bunny to Steve’s lap and announced, “I’m getting some milk. Do you want any?”</p>
<p>“No, my mouth’s fine.”</p>
<p>“You sure?” she giggled. “You’re looking pretty swollen.”</p>
<p>He tapped his puffy lips, stained red from hot oil. “No, I’ll brush my teeth and wind down.”</p>
<p>“Do you still have my spare?” she called from the kitchen.</p>
<p>“Uh…” Steve said to himself before finding it and plucking a rabbit hair out of the bristles. “Yeah!”</p>
<p>‘Winding down,’ of course, meant staying up far later than either of them needed, the time spent phone scrolling, media sharing, and sitting up to watch the rabbits tear through the apartment.</p>
<p>“How do they not break anything?” Robin asked, astonished and impressed.</p>
<p>“It’s more like waking up to the chairs in <em>Poltergeist</em>,” Steve informed. “Everything is rearranged.”</p>
<p>“Most impressive,” Robin mused. That’s how they fell asleep to <em>Bill and Ted</em> on the television. Steve woke up much later with a rabbit butt against his nose. He blinked once, and then his head shot up.</p>
<p>Someone had knocked on the door.</p>
<p>At least…he could’ve sworn that’s what he heard. He looked at Robin, but she slept soundly with her back to him.</p>
<p>Padding quietly to the door, Steve squinted through the bell wreath and peephole. Nobody stood on the other side, but that didn’t mean much. Opening his door gave as much of an announcement to someone within the apartment as without, but he braved it and…looked down at a package. He crouched for it, peering left and right, before he focused on the blurry branding printed on the box:</p>
<p>
  <em>Hermes Optical</em>
</p>
<p>Shutting the door, Steve placed the box on the narrow counter and reached for a knife from the magnetic strip on the wall. He heard Robin moving around in his bathroom as Styrofoam popcorn littered the floor. He scooped the pieces up quickly when he felt fur against his foot, but tiny white pieces stuck to his hair when he raked it off his face and stared into the box. He recognized single-use contact lenses easily enough, but he pulled the packing slip out to read the contents.</p>
<p>
  <em>Recipient: Steve Sawyer</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Items:</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Prescription lens frames – Style: Oxford</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>RayBan prescription lens / solar protection frames – Style: Joel</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Prescription lens frames – Style: Ghost</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>One month supply prescription contact lenses – Style: n/a</em>
</p>
<p>Steve stared so long at the paper that Robin came in and chimed groggily, “Is that your glasses already? Big box for a pair…oh. You got contacts too?”</p>
<p>
  <em>I sure as hell didn’t.</em>
</p>
<p>“Yeah…just in case.”</p>
<p>“I had the impression you were just waiting on the one pair.” She opened his cabinet for cereal.</p>
<p>“Yeah, uh, they had a sale,” he lied while fishing out the contents. “I only expedited one pair. It still shouldn’t have been here <em>today</em>.”</p>
<p>He opened the individual boxes and yanked the microfiber sleeves off, and there they were: two polished spectacles and one glossy pair of sunglasses. He found the pair he,<em> Steve</em>, ordered and stabbed it onto his face like it was the glasses’ fault…</p>
<p>He blinked and looked at Robin, then behind him at the rabbits crunching on the leaves she had given them from the fridge when she’d gone for milk. Steve opened the kitchen drawer full of miscellaneous baubles and trash—as well as his broken glasses. Removing the ones from his face, he scrutinized the lens width compared to the largest chunk of lens from the drawer…</p>
<p>Robin’s hair whirled around her face when she turned at the slam of the drawer. “I understand it’s 1pm, but I’m gonna need you to <em>not</em> do <em>that</em> ever again.”</p>
<p>“Sorry,” he grumbled quietly. He felt even worse when she set a bowl close to him on the counter. He hadn’t realized she was pouring cereal for two. “Thanks.”</p>
<p>“Did they get the order wrong?”</p>
<p>The last, jaded straw was Steve rapidly typing his password into his bank account app. <em>Refund confirmed:</em> <em>Hermes Optical. $235.01</em></p>
<p>He sighed, “No, it’s fine.”</p>
<p>
  <em>That asshole.</em>
</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Billy swiveled in his seat back and forth, back and forth. He didn’t actually need to come to this office half the time; his phone and computer worked just fine in his house on the outskirts of the city, but…when he discovered the eye doctor used a privately owned mail service, Billy wanted to see Steve come into work on Monday. There was something hugely appropriate about Steve getting the package yesterday too. On a Sunday.</p>
<p>Of course, Steve used the kitchen door today. It’s fine. That’s what businesses do; there’s an employee door, and a client door. Billy could still see the lights come on between the blinds, and when Steve chose to only open the blinds instead of pulling them up all the way.</p>
<p>Less than ideal, but fine.</p>
<p>Until the morning rush calmed down, and then a jerk of movement drew Billy’s center focus to his periphery. Steve pulled the blinds up, his eyes scanning the street before flicking up, almost landing right on his own despite the tinted glass. Billy smirked at the crook of his finger.</p>
<p>Billy briefly deliberated whether or not to keep him waiting. To let hours go by and then happen to walk into the shop, dismantling Steve’s confidence in guessing his location correctly.</p>
<p>But Billy didn’t wait. And he could play a little fairly, since he knew where Steve worked and lived. Plus, Steve hadn’t run. He didn’t high tail it out of the city the moment he knew Billy was there. He didn’t leave when he knew Billy intended to <em>stay</em>.</p>
<p>That was…something. Billy could work with something.</p>
<p>So he walked into the coffee shop, the place full enough to have a pleasant hum of noise throughout it. He stood at the counter, waiting through the deliciously anxious seconds for Steve to turn around. The seconds Billy used to absorb his light blue jeans, the canvas apron straps crossing over the striped sweater, and how said sweater had a worn hole above the hem.</p>
<p>Those hips rotated and Billy looked up to meet Steve’s annoyed gaze. He looked good. He’d chosen the glasses with frames, but even Billy had to admit the shiny, spotless lenses looked good on him. On Steve.</p>
<p>He didn’t ask Billy what he wanted. Nor did he treat Billy like a stranger. That was something too.</p>
<p>Billy’s gaze softened as he shrugged with his hands in his coat pockets. “Surprise me.”</p>
<p>Steve gave that a thought, his jaw sliding to the side before he murmured, “<em>Sit</em>. <em>Somewhere</em>.”</p>
<p>Billy tried and failed to keep his smirk to a minimum, but he left the counter so Steve could fume in relative peace. Ever so conveniently, a booth seat along the wall became available. So Billy sat, and waited to see what else Steve would give him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Steve's brain:  *exploding*<br/>Billy's brain:  My god, what a cutie. Yes, I think I will torment him forever.</p>
<p>Steve needs something against his face when he sleeps &lt;3 I'm dropping a LOT of hints toward things that won't make sense until later lol</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Serendipity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for your patience, guys! I kind of rushed through this one but I'm quite happy with it haha Enjoy!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve knew he was choking the moment Joyce slid close enough to murmur, “He’s <em>handsome</em>.”</p><p>Steve had no idea what to say to Billy. He’d delivered an espresso with a pile of milk foam on top, sprinkled with brown sugar. A small, bitter drink in a big cup. Billy had given him his credit card with a thinly veiled smirk. Steve definitely messed up in telling Billy to sit down—outright granted tableside service, and a guarantee that he’d have to go to Billy again to return his card.</p><p>Steve charged him for a large, extravagant coffee.</p><p>He bent Billy’s card against the table so it slapped against the wood. Billy raised no complaint about his beverage being more air than liquid, and Steve strode back behind the counter before anything could be said.</p><p>
  <em>You’re definitely choking. What the hell did you bring him down here for?</em>
</p><p>“He’s <em>handsome</em>,” Joyce manifested next to him.</p><p>“Who?” he feigned, but she saw right through him.</p><p>“Oh, come on. You can’t miss him. Half the room thinks they’re being discrete while staring at him.”</p><p>She laughed under her breath and rotated to man the register. Steve went about making drinks, much preferring having his back to distractions and his eyes on his work.</p><p>What had he done wrong? Steve’s departure from his dead life had gone as well as he could have hoped—unless it didn’t. Unless he missed a step, left something behind, or failed to wipe a footprint on his way here. What orders did Billy have? And why was he waiting? It didn’t make sense to wait to off Steve unless Billy was meant to keep Steve in place until others arrived…</p><p>He’d been ready to die in his apartment. Or worse. As much dread and panic had flared up inside him, part of him expected this. Part of him refused to hope, and instead waited. First for hours, and then the hours melted into days. Days gave way to years. The wait nestled in the back of his mind, quiet and sleepy. Waking up to Billy on the other side of the coffee shop door had happened so fast, it was a blur in his memory. But when he heard Billy tinkering with his locks, he made the decision to stand his ground instead of climbing through the bathroom window to the fire escape. If he was going to die, he wanted it to be on his terms, in his home, being who he wanted to be.</p><p>Instead, Billy sat swirling his stupid espresso while scrolling through his phone. That asshole always did have a mean sense of humor. Particularly at Steve’s expense.</p><p>Working his throat around a dry swallow, Steve rubbed his belly, trying to soothe the sack of snakes writhing in it. Letting himself hope for four years had really shattered his endurance for this kind of bullshit.</p><p>“Hi, honey,” he heard Joyce say behind him.</p><p>“Hi,” came a familiar, rushed sigh. “Hey, Steve.”</p><p>He glanced behind him but focused on pouring almond milk. “Hey, Nance.”</p><p>“Can I get a small chai and cinnamon raisin with apple butter, please?”</p><p>“ ‘Course you can,” Joyce smiled in her voice. “Do you need it in a cup? You look like you rushed here.”</p><p>“Uh, actually, a mug is fine, if I could talk to Steve for a bit?”</p><p>Joyce looked between them, but Steve looked to her for permission. She sputtered like he was being silly. “Go ahead! I can manage back here. We’re on the tail end of the rush anyway.”</p><p>Steve met Nancy’s blue gaze. “Lemme finish this and you pick a spot?”</p><p>“Okay,” she agreed while taking her change from Joyce.</p><p>Different blue eyes watched her and Steve’s exchange, as well as the ensuing body language afterward. Something in the young woman relaxed as she picked a table a little ways down from Billy’s own. Steve quickly finished a drink to put together <em>Nance’s</em> and deliver it with himself. Billy assumed her name was Nancy, meaning they were close enough for nicknames.</p><p>Steve eased himself into the chair opposite her, setting her plate, mug, and tiny dish of apple butter on the wooden surface. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket so it wouldn’t get crushed, and raked his hair to the other side of his face, like a blinder against <em>that</em> side of the room. “What’s up?”</p><p>Nancy poised wide, stern eyes on him, which he mirrored with his own, <em>Oh shit</em>, expression. “That bad?”</p><p>She pushed her lightly curled bob behind her ear and rather aggressively scraped pulverized apples onto her bagel. “You know my brother, Mike.”</p><p>“Sure,” he shrugged. “Fifth period English.”</p><p>“He’s got a girlfriend, whom he’s been spending a lot of time with. Like, <em>a lot</em>.”</p><p>“Yeah, I’ve heard,” Steve chuckled, earning a gaping stare from her. He elaborated, “Dustin and Will told me about it. Apparently there was some club on Saturday but Mike ditched them for his girlfriend. Dustin didn’t take it very well.”</p><p>She leaned forward for something close to privacy and to emphasize, “You know what that means right?”</p><p>Steve had set his elbows on the table to meet her halfway, but now brows flattened as his eyes wandered the dishware for the answer. “No. What?”</p><p>Nancy’s eyes rolled so hard, her head moved with them. “Did you not date in high school? Throwing away obligations to other people is one step away from screwing.”</p><p>Steve tried to grimace gently. “Meddling in your brother’s sex life is a little weird, Nance.”</p><p>She held up a hand as if to stop his thoughts from going in that direction. “I’m not trying to be a mom, but the fact is that our actual mother didn’t do shit for me and my sexual education, so I know she isn’t paying attention to Mike. Don’t even get me started on our dad—”</p><p>“I’ve met your dad. I know.”</p><p>Nancy took a tired yet somehow equally energetic bite of her bagel. Washing it down with her tea, she recommenced, “This is the first relationship he’s been in. Before now, he spent his weekends on Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. Summers were for LARPing and stealing money from me for conventions.”</p><p>Steve snorted a little. “Not anymore with a girlfriend around, unless she’s into that stuff.”</p><p>“Given how he chose her over the club with his friends, I’d say she isn’t. I don’t know if he’s ever even <em>seen</em> a condom.”</p><p>“Hang on,” Steve curtailed while sitting up straight to adjust his posture. “Have you met her?”</p><p>Nancy shrugged. “Just in quick, passing circumstances. She’s nice enough. Really quiet.”</p><p>“What gives you the impression that she can’t boss Mike around? As a teacher I’m not allowed to say this, but a nerd like him with his first girlfriend? He’s a puppy on a leash, so long as she holds it right.”</p><p>“My brother needs to be accountable!” she declared. “It’s not fair to put that all on one side of the relationship.”</p><p>“Okay, okay,” he tried to soothe, but Nancy’s fire had been lit.</p><p>“He doesn’t deserve her if he’s just another dickhead eager to lose his cherry.”</p><p>“Oh boy.”</p><p>“He needs someone he’ll actually listen to. You’ve met him, he’s a shitty little know-it-all.”</p><p>“Yeah, and you’re his sister—<em>ow</em>.”</p><p>She pinched and twisted the skin on the back of his hand but he made no efforts to stop her. “I need someone to talk to him! He’s so stupid in love he won’t hear a word I say. He needs someone who is an authority figure, or so out of left field he’ll pay attention. Can that be you? You teach his class somewhat regularly, right?”</p><p>It was Steve’s turn to gape bluntly at her. “You want me to give his class a lesson on sex ed?”</p><p>A wet combination between a snort and a cough turned both of their heads towards Billy, who set his cup down to wipe his mouth. Steve felt heat blossom up his throat, but Nancy returned to the matter at hand.</p><p>“It doesn’t have to be to the entire class, no. But you can make a tangent happen. They could all use it. The tangent conversations were always the best part of high school.”</p><p>Steve’s fingertips scratched his forehead while he said, “Nancy, you have a boyfriend, whose brother is Mike’s friend. Why are you asking me?”</p><p>“If Mike was younger, Jonathan could do it, but now Mike’s got his head so far up his own ass—”</p><p>“It’s not his ass he’s crawling up.”</p><p>“Steve!”</p><p>“I’m fairly sure if you just throw a box of condoms at his head, he’ll get the message. He and his friends will likely blow half of them up like balloons first, though.”</p><p>She frowned at him. “What?”</p><p>His brows lifted. “You never had a condom balloon float around a pep-rally? Or roll around the gym during a basketball game?”</p><p>Her mouth curved in a smile but she answered, “No? Now that you say that, though, I’m surprised it didn’t happen.”</p><p>He smirked. “Clearly your school lacks the <em>panache</em> mine had.”</p><p>Her lashes lowered to half-mast. “No, we just didn’t have <em>you</em> blowing them up.”</p><p>Steve chose to neither confirm nor deny that and instead voiced, “It’s a shame Mike’s not a swimmer. At the end of the swim season, I host a pool party and bring a jumbo box of multicolored condoms. Balloons all over the water.”</p><p>Nancy didn’t hide her displeasure at him. “I’m sure it’s fun, but that’s trashy.”</p><p>“To a bunch of teenage boys, it’s hilarious, and nobody leaves that pool blushing over a condom again. I even bring spares since they’ll have other activities to get up to with the season over.”</p><p>Nancy tore a piece of her bagel off and leaned back against the booth while she contemplated, “So I just need to bully Mike into joining the swim team so he spends less time with his girlfriend and so you’ll tell him to keep his ends covered.”</p><p>“Nance, I’m telling you: just leave a box on his bed with a note saying, ‘Don’t fuck up,’ and he’ll be fine. Okay? They’re going to sleep together regardless of what any of us say, if it’s their decision. Frankly, it’s possible they already have.”</p><p>She didn’t like that notion one bit. She looked like she just took a bite of a lemon spread instead of apple. Steve shrugged and added, “Nerds are nasty. Like band kids. Don’t underestimate them.”</p><p>Nancy hung around the café long enough to order a second tea and for most of the brunch crowd to clear out. Joyce took Steve’s spot at her table so he could move around the room, discarding napkins and cups as well as collecting mugs and plates. He got to Billy’s table and took the empty cup—</p><p>And felt his phone slip right out of his back pocket.</p><p>He spun around to swipe it out of Billy’s hand, but the latter was ready. Billy pivoted to avoid Steve’s initial grab, lighting up the lock screen and typing…</p><p>Steve’s eyes widened over clamped lips. Billy gazed at the image of Steve’s bunnies cuddled on his blankets—his unlocked home screen. His long lashes swept up for his eyes to pose the silent question, <em>Really? You use the same password?</em></p><p>Steve knew he probably looked panic-stricken, but Billy only laughed quietly and started navigating through his phone—again dodging Steve’s hands.</p><p>“Can I have that <em>back</em>, <em>please</em>?”</p><p>“Just a sec,” Billy said, and looked at his own phone. The stone in Steve’s gut couldn’t decide to swing with nerves at the sight of Billy calling himself from Steve’s phone, or to glow hot with rage. “Got you.”</p><p>Steve snatched his phone back, to which Billy cooed, “Easy…”</p><p>Steve spared an extremely brief glance back to point at the door. “Leave.”</p><p>“I’m comfy.”</p><p>Steve threw Billy’s paper cup back at him—paper because Steve is petty and refused to give the bastard a mug. Billy caught it with laughter on his lips.</p><p>Joyce’s voice cut into Steve’s mental cloud of anger, annoyance, and a whole lot of other things he didn’t want to acknowledge. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”</p><p>Bless Joyce for thinking they were friends instead of the fact that Steve mildly attacked a customer. Even if that customer was Billy, who replied smoothly, “Yes, ma’am. Long time.”</p><p>“Really?” she exclaimed, rotating to fully face him. Steve’s eyes darted between them and Nancy, who steadily absorbed his reaction mixed with slow glances at Billy. “Steve never talks about anybody outside of his work.”</p><p>Said Steve marched his ass back behind the counter, begrudgingly listening to Billy charm his way out of Steve’s private life and into the open air. “Well it’s been a while. We met all the way back in high school, and my work’s brought me here ten years later. Serendipity is on my side.”</p><p>“How fun!” Joyce mused. “You must’ve been close.”</p><p>“We practically lived together.”</p><p>Steve felt his phone vibrate and seethed as he read the screen: <em>Your boss is nice.</em></p><p>He rapidly processed how worthwhile it would be to change his number and decided…not very. He replied: <em>LEAVE</em>.</p><p>Billy’s reply came just as quickly, thanks to their mutual connection to the shop’s wifi. <em>Nah</em>.</p><p>Steve threw his pride out along with the discarded coffee grinds, and saved Billy’s number to his contacts. He heard Joyce chime various conversational things, along with, “…it’s a shame when life gets in the way of relationships...”</p><p>
  <em>Stop giving her ideas!</em>
</p><p><em>I like her ideas,</em> Billy replied. <em>She’s a romantic. You used to be romantic.</em></p><p>
  <em>Stop.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You have customers.</em>
</p><p>Steve’s head jerked up to see the woman politely waiting. Steve apologized and threw Billy a glare when she searched her purse for the right amount of change.</p><p>“Steve?”</p><p>He realized Nancy had come up beside him at some point. “Yeah?”</p><p>“I’ll talk to you later? We can get dinner or something somewhere. Jonathan and whoever you want can join us if you want a bigger thing.”</p><p>He slid his hair behind his ear while he considered aloud, “Well Robin’s outside the city, so it would be better if she was already in town for some—” <em>Whoever you want can join</em>. “Oh. Uh. No, um.”</p><p>Nancy waved a hand to cut him off with a polite laugh. “I’ll talk to you later.”</p><p>Steve rubbed the inner corners of his eyes and pinched his nose bridge. “Yep. Yeah.”</p><p>He finished the transactions for the pair of customers who had come in, and watched with some surprise as Billy actually left.</p><p>Then Joyce gave him a motherly smirk on her way behind the counter. “He’s sweet.”</p><p>“He’s obnoxious. Just give him time.”</p><p>She laughed and nudged him as she opened the display case. “You should have him around again. You can catch up.”</p><p>“There’s nothing to catch up.”</p><p>She gave him a look. “Uh huh. Well, if nothing else, the more often he’s around, the higher our profits will be.”</p><p>His jaw clenched as he looked at a new message. <em>You and Nancy are chummy.</em></p><p>“Oh, Steve?”</p><p>He looked up at her and blinked vacantly as she rubbed his arm. “We’ve never talked about it, but this is a safe space…do you know that? If anyone ever gives you crap for having an ex-partner around, or <em>any</em> partner around, no customer is ever worth it—”</p><p>Steve erupted, “He’s not my ex-anything!”</p><p>“Oh, honey.” Her eyes rolled. “If you weren’t anything, there’s definitely an old flame there. This whole place had eyes on him, but he was looking right at you the whole time. Tea?”</p><p>She dropped two tea bags into cups for them while going about customer orders. Steve typed furiously and shoved his phone into his front pocket underneath his apron.</p><p>
  <em>So help me god, never come back to this café.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Billy: *radiating feral "he's mine" energy*<br/>Joyce and Nancy: Awww</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a><br/><a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. T-Shirt</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This one goes back to some dark topics~ just so you know &lt;3 And per usual, I wrote it very quickly with no editing. We die like men. Or go to sleep and then scream at all the typos in the morning.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Billy made it his morning routine to have coffee at the café.</p><p>The following morning, he strolled in as the morning rush was beginning to trickle in. He smirked, very much looking like he’d already had caffeine, at a displeased Steve and set his credit card on the counter—but not without poising a finger on Steve’s wrist brace. “You weren’t wearing this yesterday.”</p><p>“I didn’t need it yesterday. What do you want?”</p><p>Billy visibly considered how far to pry, but settled, “Surprise me.”</p><p>He sat in the same place as the day prior. Steve delivered a cup of hot water and lemon slices with the card. Billy’s gaze flicked up at him, but Steve ignored it to return behind the counter.</p><p>Billy stayed until about the same time as yesterday, early afternoon or so.</p><p>The following morning Steve made him a black coffee, and Billy left at the same time.</p><p>The rest of the week followed with Joyce watching Steve and customers watching Billy as they failed to look ignorant of each other over the hours.</p><p>Espresso with milk foam.</p><p>Water with lemon.</p><p>Black coffee.</p><p>Americano.</p><p>Upon his arrival on Friday, Steve had the most grotesque Frappuccino ready for him; made with every syrup they had in the store. <em>Hope you get a headache</em>, he wrote on Billy’s receipt. Billy left at his regular time, arriving at the counter to deposit his empty mug and—</p><p>And pushed one hundred dollars in the tip vase.</p><p>Steve almost missed it, but Billy’s lingering by the door made him look up. He read the money Billy had made sure stuck in the neck of the vase, and then gaped at Billy’s smirk before he strolled outside. Steve plucked the money out of the vase before Joyce noticed, and tried to look relaxed as he put it in the register…</p><p><em>Delicious</em>, Billy had written on it.</p><p>Saturday couldn’t haul ass fast enough.</p><p>The day arrived with a cold, sunny morning, a load of text messages from Dustin, and a sprinkling of messages from Robin and…one from Billy.</p><p>
  <em>You’re not going to tell me about her?</em>
</p><p>He sighed, going to the message simply to be rid of the notification. The idiot had overheard Steve say that Nancy had a boyfriend. There was no point to being jealous—</p><p>Steve jerked his head as if to throw the notion of Billy being, having reason, or any such thing in regards to Steve’s relationships. He focused on extracting a dried slice of carrot from the bag in the drawer while brushing his teeth. His brown bunny, Loony, did not help matters by flopping in the bowl of the sink.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Swim practice went long, but Dustin met him towards the end with Will once again in tow. On their way to Steve’s car, Dustin yelled in the distance, “Fuzzy peaches!”</p><p>Steve recognized the dark curly hair whipping around the tall, lank of a boy in the distance walking with a girl. “SHUT UP!” Mike shouted. The girl next to him smiled in their direction but took his hand to leave the parking lot.</p><p>Dustin and Will giggled before Steve ventured, “Fuzzy peaches?”</p><p>The former began, “Long story short—”</p><p>Will clipped, “Ellie saw Mike naked on accident.”</p><p>Dustin picked up, “Indoor community pool, etc. etc. Changing room mishap. Mike’s got hair on his butt. He’s terrified Ellie’s gonna think less of him for it.”</p><p>Will scoffed, “Only if he stays that skinny. Then he’ll be all hair and no butt.”</p><p>Steve clamped his mouth shut, this topic being miles away from a teacher’s place to comment. Sounded like Nancy’s concerns were still a fair distance away, though.</p><p>At the coffee shop, he held the door for them and swung himself into the warm space—and locked eyes with Billy in his usual spot. The chatter of the kids mixed with the shop and Steve tore his gaze over to Joyce greeting her son. He swallowed thickly and focused on removing his outer garments and tying his apron.</p><p>“I think he’s waiting on you to order something.”</p><p>He peeked up at Joyce smirking gently at him. Steve murmured, “How long’s he been here?”</p><p>“Not long, actually. Maybe an hour?”</p><p>Billy knew his schedule. Great.</p><p>He sighed and reached for the small stack of current orders. The weekend crowd tended to want more elaborate, fancy things. Steve crouched for his backup brace under the register, as well as the wooden ruler. He cinched the brace loosely around his arm so he could stuff the ruler against the inside of his forearm. Then he made more lattes and cappuccinos with creamy leaf patterns than he ever wanted to process.</p><p>Billy frowned slightly at the sight of the ruler, but observed Steve multitasking with both hands and steadily pouring things that made women of all ages giggle over their cups. When the time came that Steve took a deep breath and wiped his hands on his apron, Billy held his card on his table. Given the time for his eyes to wander, they found Billy, and flattened.</p><p>Billy tried to keep his smile discrete as Steve came to his table. When he grasped Billy’s card, the latter held onto it, causing Steve’s eyes to light up at him with surprise and inquiry. “Answer your texts.”</p><p>Blue eyes flicked to Steve’s parted lips before he turned back to the counter. <em>Why in such a huff?</em> Billy crooned to himself, and considered texting it to him. Just to really be a bother.</p><p>Then the kid with curly hair hollered, “Steve! Low tide is in two hours and the construction is paused today in—”</p><p>Billy had the unique experience of seeing Steve rest a hand on the glass case and level a stare at the kid. It wasn’t so hard to believe he worked part-time as a teacher.</p><p>But it was Joyce who clipped, “Dustin! This isn’t a living room!”</p><p>He gaped vacantly before that registered. “Sorry,” he blurted as Steve broke into his own quiet giggles. A slight smile moved Dustin’s features so he knew he wasn’t in real trouble. Therefore he felt no real quandary over calling, “Hey, Miss Buckley!” when a she walked in.</p><p>She returned Dustin and Will’s waves before setting her tote bag on the counter. Steve greeted, “I didn’t know you were in town today.”</p><p>“Yeah,” she huffed, tossing her head to get her fringe out of the way. “Teachers’ conference-thing. I’ve got your clothes I used last weekend.”</p><p>Billy blinked at the small pile she set on the counter. Fluffy, dark green pajama pants, t-shirt, and an oversized, thrifted cardigan that belonged in ugly Christmas sweater parties? Definitely Steve’s. Billy had known that Robin had gone to Steve’s apartment, but not that she’d stayed the night…</p><p>The only person Steve had ever let into his room back in his parents’ house had been Billy. He knew that because Tommy already knew, and always waited downstairs for Steve, no matter how long he took to get ready. Billy figured out that he spent his time at his girlfriends’ homes; every now and then there would be a resurgence in the school gossip over why Steve never hosted house parties. Everyone wanted to see where the swim jock lived. It was a general consensus that his place was large—probably from old, childhood friends having visited and attesting to it before Steve grew out of them.</p><p>Maybe that’s why he knew how to escape his father’s security force. He’d been practicing it for years.</p><p>Billy’s entrance to his room hadn’t been intentional. It hadn’t even been desired. At that point in time, he and Steve got into more fights than conversations. After Billy’s anger and jealousy got the better of him that first time—Steve, with his perfect hair, and perfect house, and pampered life—his fist had just flown on its own.</p><p>And his father had been proud.</p><p>Standing in his office with nostrils crusted in blood, on the verge of trembling like a leaf as his father clapped a hand on his shoulder, Billy thought he was going to die.</p><p>
  <em>“Any time you think that pompous queer deserves our style of medicine, you give it to him.”</em>
</p><p>He’d left Billy in the office, where he stood for so long that his knees buckled when his brain ran out of oxygen. The irony was that the Harringtons didn’t seem to care. Boys throw hands, no big deal. It’s high school. Mr. Harrington only observed Billy’s facial injuries the next time they met, and didn’t say a word.</p><p>But some time later, when Billy didn’t know what to do or where to go, he had much worse injuries on his face.</p><p>His father gave him an order. A tougher one than he’d ever been given. Billy couldn’t say no. <em>“This has to be done tonight, boy. You don’t leave until it’s done, or you don’t come back at all.”</em></p><p>Billy got it done. But he left the warehouse where he’d been sorely outnumbered, beaten, and bloody. The two men he’d been allowed to take were dead. But one person had taken his getaway car. Just one. One was enough. It was a loose thread. Billy had failed.</p><p>He wandered the city for hours into the night, holding himself against the chill that the river brought with it and cast all over the city. When he looked up, he realized what street he could turn down. He felt himself clutched in the same chasm as he’d been in his father’s office: ready to die by his father’s order or Harrington’s.</p><p>He chose Harrington’s.</p><p>But by some fucking fluke—sheer stupid luck, like the rest of his life—Steve had answered the door. He held a quesadilla in one hand and looked at him for a good minute before he stopped chewing. Billy could barely see him, let alone hear the next thing he said, if Steve said anything at all. Billy only knew that Steve’s warm hand, tight on his cold wrist as he yanked him inside, surged through his panic and disassociation.</p><p>Steve had probably said, <em>“Holy shit.”</em></p><p>Then, <em>“Why are you wet? Jesus, come here. Take off your shoes.”</em></p><p>Steve had crouched down himself, holding his food in his teeth while his hands coaxed Billy to move. One hand on his shin, the other on Billy’s heel. Steve carried his shoes on their way up the stairs, the wet socks stuffed inside. Each stair brought Billy back to some sort of consciousness. The marble foyer they were leaving behind. The marble stairs with a draping of carpet down the center. Softness under his cold feet. His feet hurt from so much cold.</p><p>As he followed Steve through an immaculately clean corridor—cream walls, white carpet, various sculptures on plinths or artwork on the walls—Billy realized that Mr. Harrington’s office was downstairs. At least the one Billy have ever visited outside of his work suite.</p><p>“Come here,” Steve said again, holding the door for him. Wearing a navy t-shirt and white pajama pants.</p><p>The door shut behind him and Billy realized all at once where he stood. Steve’s room. It was too lived in to be a guest space. Too…clumsily arranged to match the rest of the house. His bed was shoved into a corner, pillows away from the window for the most shade. Other stuff. Two dressers. Posters. Laundry—</p><p>“Billy?”</p><p>Steve had a hand on his shoulder. Like an experiment, he put the other on Billy’s chest, over the wet shirt, tie, and blazer. Then he lifted the hand to hold Billy’s cold cheek. “Billy?” he murmured, turning his face for the other hand to catch. Cradled in Steve’s large, warm hands, Billy thought distantly of where he had put the quesadilla…</p><p>Steve’s eyes were very large, and very close. “Is there anything on your body that needs to be kept? Forensic stuff?”</p><p>Billy tried to think, but his body didn’t feel like his own. Like he didn’t deserve it. Like some cruel confirmation, his eyes were failing, Steve going blurry—</p><p>The pads of his thumbs caught Billy’s tears, wiping them away, pushing them into the blood from Billy’s scalp. He shook his head.</p><p>“Okay,” Steve whispered. Soft. He nodded gently and kept wiping. As if…like Billy could be cleaned. “Okay. Come here.”</p><p>Billy’s eyes shut, pushing tears down his face as he let Steve pull their bodies together. His face met the warmth of Steve’s neck, tears and blood sullying his soft t-shirt, smudging his skin. Steve’s long arms held him, his wide, lean shoulders taking his weight. Christ, they weren’t even friends. They barely tolerated each other; forced to sit together at lunch and other social gatherings because of a shared knowledge of the city’s underbelly. But Steve held him while Billy cried silently, in too much shock to make a noise.</p><p>Eventually Billy felt circles being pushed into his back. Steve’s voice vibrated against his face, and his wet lashes fluttered against that skin. “You’re okay. You’re gonna take a shower, and be okay. I’ve got clothes you can wear. You’re staying here. Come on.”</p><p>He turned Billy’s body toward his connected bathroom, nearly as large as his bedroom. The rushing water caused ripples in Billy’s brain, further bringing him closer to the here and now. But he didn’t want to be too far here. He wanted to stay numb.</p><p>“Do you want help?”</p><p>Billy shook his head before he really thought about it. Steve was pulling towels down off a metal rack and leaving when Billy spoke. “Yes.”</p><p>Steve gripped the vanity counter to steady his halt. “What? Yes? But you—” He <em>laughed</em>. Breathy and quiet, but Steve smiled. He looked…kind. The way he was supposed to look in a t-shirt. He said, “Okay,” and pulled his t-shirt off.</p><p><em>Jesus</em>, it was the off-season, so Steve didn’t have to shave, and Billy had never seen his chest hair before. He didn’t have the brain capacity to think about it as Steve collaborated in undressing him, but it sure became an image burned behind Billy’s eyes.</p><p>When they were under the water—scalding compared to Billy’s soaked, chilled body—Steve soaped up a washcloth and began carefully peeling back tendrils of Billy’s hair to get to his scalp. He bowed his head to give him better access, and an odd flush of humor warmed Billy’s gut. Steve hadn’t needed to undress. He could’ve stood outside the shower. Or told Billy to get in the bathtub at the end of the room.</p><p>Instead, Billy had an unobstructed view of all of him. Steve was surprisingly hairless beyond his chest; the hair on his legs faintly dark and the patch crowning his penis not extending into a lengthy trail up his abdomen. Circumcised. Huh. He didn’t take the Harringtons as religious. But there it is.</p><p>Nice legs.</p><p>“Again.”</p><p>“Hm?” Steve asked distractedly, revolving around Billy so his own body blocked some of the water while he worked.</p><p>“Hold my face again.”</p><p>So Steve just…draped the washcloth on Billy’s shoulder, and cupped his cheeks again. Billy focused on breathing, letting Steve’s hands cradle him and hold the weight of his head.</p><p>“Don’t pass out.”</p><p>“I’m not.”</p><p>When Billy’s skin was pink and his fingers pruney, Steve turned the water off and left him to get clothes. With a white towel around his waist, Steve fumbled with maroon sweatpants, green plaid boxers, and a Tweety Bird shirt clearly stained from blue jeans. “What is this?”</p><p>“What?” Steve chirped before diving into his own fresh shirt. “It’s soft.”</p><p>“Does your mom dress you in the mornings? You never wear this stuff.”</p><p>“Glad to hear your attitude’s back,” Steve returned, stepping into his cut-off sweat shorts.</p><p>In Steve’s bed, Billy told him what happened. Why Steve didn’t take him to a guest room, Billy had never asked, but in the early hours of the morning, he awoke to Steve slipping back into his room. When he opened the covers to slide next to Billy, the latter lurched into full consciousness, realizing he must have gone to speak with his father—</p><p>Only to have Steve’s hand move up his chest, pushing him down in time with Steve lying down. “It’s handled. Shh…try to sleep some more. You’re okay. Come on, we got class in, like, three hours.”</p><p>That same hand now rested on the pile of clothes Robin returned to him. Billy’s fingertips moved over his mouth.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Any JROTC people here? haha anyways, if you lock your legs for too long, the blood has trouble moving back up your body and you pass out. That's what happened to Billy. This chapter almost got very long lol but instead I'll be mean and leave you all with pining Billy. The next one will pick up right where we ended~</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a><br/><a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Cinderella</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm like Billy, I just can't stay away from Steve and this story U_U even though I have a literal MOUNTAIN of writing I need to do lol hope you guys like it &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve’s fingers moved over his freshly washed clothes. “You didn’t have to bring them with you. I could’ve gotten them at school.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, because we need to feed more into everybody wishing we got married,” Robin scoffed.</p>
<p>He stifled a laugh around the straw as he hydrated before stashing the cup and his clothes under the counter. “I appreciate it. What’ll it be?”</p>
<p>Robin sighed with a tired wave of her hand. “Surprise me. I’ll even tip you if you actually give me a decent size.”</p>
<p>Steve licked his lips and sassed, “You could just pay me,” before his phone vibrated and he shot a look over Robin’s shoulder at Billy. The man sat with his jaw on his palm, fingers tapping his cheek and eyes shamelessly steady on him.</p>
<p>Robin followed his gaze briefly. “Who’s that?”</p>
<p>“An asshole waiting on his drink. But it won’t take long.”</p>
<p>“Are you being slutty on the job?”</p>
<p>“<em>What?</em>” Steve burst, and outright jumped when the milk steamer spat loudly.</p>
<p>Robin rolled a shoulder and leaned a hip against the counter. “I don’t know how men work. Every time <em>we</em> argue, the staff is ready to lock us in the conference room. Is this a sexual tension thing?”</p>
<p>Steve all but slammed a lid on the cup of steamed milk. “<em>Robin</em>. When have I ever thrown slutty eyes at someone?”</p>
<p>“Surprisingly, never. Which is why this occasion stands out,” she crooned, gesturing a finger over the floor.</p>
<p>“Sit somewhere!” he waved her off, ignoring her smirk as he rounded the counter with Billy’s drink and card in hand.</p>
<p>When he set Billy’s things on his table, Billy pinned him in place with a finger on his hand. Steve waited with clear trepidation on his face. Billy repeated softly, “Surprisingly never?”</p>
<p>“Stop eavesdropping and get out.”</p>
<p>“Answer your texts and I wouldn’t have to.”</p>
<p>The pad of his finger dragged over Steve’s hand as he left the table. Thankfully, as he worked on Robin’s tea latte, Nancy jogged past the windows and entered in a huff. “Steve! You need to talk to Mike!”</p>
<p>“Mike?” Dustin rotated in his seat. “What’s wrong with Mike?”</p>
<p>Nancy threw Dustin and Will a careless glance and did a double take. “You! Why aren’t you guys with Mike?”</p>
<p>Will answered, “Because he’s being gross with Ellie.”</p>
<p>Steve shrank under the livid spotlight of Nancy’s glare. He shook his head. “I’m working—”</p>
<p>She gripped the back of his apron, forcing Steve to navigate backwards to the table she chose. On their way past Robin, Steve grabbed her arm, yanking her out of her seat. For all the good it did, because they both landed on the bench alongside the wall with Nancy taking the seat opposite them.</p>
<p>“They are taking <em>naps</em> together.”</p>
<p>“Who are we talking about?” Robin asked with a mixture of accusation since she’d been rudely dragged into this meeting.</p>
<p>Steve sighed, “Her brother and his girlfriend. Mike Wheeler?”</p>
<p>“Oh, him.”</p>
<p>Nancy frowned. “Him?”</p>
<p>“He’s loud. You can hear him through the walls. The entire language hallway has Mike as a student.”</p>
<p>Steve took a sip from Robin’s latte. “Look forward to <em>that</em>—”</p>
<p>Robin realized what he drank and took it from him before saying, “What’s the issue with taking naps together? Sounds docile to me.”</p>
<p>Nancy threw her head back to lament at the ceiling, “Oh, come <em>on!</em> Time spent getting comfortable, either horizontally or in vulnerable situations like sleeping, are easy segues to sex!”</p>
<p>Robin and Steve stared flatly at her, the former shaking her head lazily. “Teenagers have sex. Especially straight ones. Society practically entitles them to it.”</p>
<p>Steve’s gaze flicked to Dustin and Will talking with their heads together. He balled up a napkin from the table’s dispenser, and threw it at Dustin. He got a middle finger in return.</p>
<p>“I grade your papers!”</p>
<p>Robin perked up. “Keep your gossip in the salon, ladies!”</p>
<p>“You’re gossiping about our friends!” Dustin retorted.</p>
<p>Steve inquired for the whole café to hear, “Do you know how a condom works?”</p>
<p>Will’s large eyes froze in his skull before he sent an anxious glance at Dustin, whose mouth hung open.</p>
<p>Steve gestured with the flat of his hand like, <em>See?</em> before he outright said, “Nancy, I can’t just <em>spring</em> a sex ed lesson on an unsuspecting English class! The kids will panic, squeal, and I’ll be blacklisted throughout the county! Maybe even the state. I promise it’s faster throwing a box of condoms at Mike’s head. If you’re lucky, you’ll knock him out long enough for his girlfriend to graduate.”</p>
<p>Robin smiled into her latte while Nancy accused, “How do you get away with a pool covered in condoms?”</p>
<p>“I make the athletic department <em>money</em>.”</p>
<p>Nancy puffed up, ready to argue further, but Robin sighed, “It’s true. I’m in the arts, I should know. Sports get all the money, and if you win State, you can commit murder and they’d cover for you.”</p>
<p>“That’s wildly unfair,” Nancy declared.</p>
<p>Steve frowned. “For murder or money?”</p>
<p>Nancy refocused on him, and he leaned back somewhat as if to brace against whatever came next. “Well how about you spring <em>Spring Awakening</em> on them? That’s gotta fit into a literature curriculum, and you can segue—”</p>
<p>“Ah yes!” Steve exploded, “Let me just introduce the most <em>uncomfortable</em> play about puberty featuring a masturbation scene. I might as well let them watch Harry Potter jack off on a horse!”</p>
<p>Robin grimaced but coughed an impressed laugh. “You know theatre?”</p>
<p>Billy swirled the contents of his cup. Steve certainly did know theatre. The number of times all their families were invited—obligated—to join the Harringtons at the opera house were immeasurable. The one time Steve confided in him, during the darkest, timeless hours of the night, how his mother acted on the stage. That his favorite films were her recorded performances. In that special place where only Steve and Billy were allowed, Steve shared how a diamond on the stage vanished inside the criminal underground. Considering the product was a handsome man who hummed way too much musical theatre, things could’ve been worse.</p>
<p>Steve’s participation in their high school shows had been a hell of a surprise. One show was provided during school hours for students, but every other performance took place in the evenings to paying ticket holders. On the day of the student matinee, Tommy was all hyped up, ready to howl and boo and stuffed Billy’s hand with party poppers.</p>
<p>“It isn’t a show unless things get rowdy,” he’d laughed. “I, for one, prefer audience participation.”</p>
<p>But as they waited in the lobby outside of the auditorium, Tommy started to bounce and touch his face anxiously. “Where the hell is Steve? He tell you he was skipping?”</p>
<p>Billy outright threw the party poppers in a nearby trash bin. Nearly two class periods were cancelled so students could watch the play, and there were plenty of other things he’d rather be doing.</p>
<p>Except when the lobby emptied, and Billy waited for a soda to drop from a vending machine, someone sprinted behind him through the lobby.</p>
<p>“Steve! Jesus! Curtain call was a million years ago!”</p>
<p>“Alright! I’m here! Calm down!”</p>
<p>It happened so fast, Billy only heard the doors to backstage slam shut before he left the soda behind to tear off a flier from the wall.</p>
<p><em>Cinderella</em>.</p>
<p>Steve’s name wasn’t on the poster, but Billy shoved his way into a seat at the back of the auditorium.</p>
<p>It certainly wasn’t Broadway. The lighting design could’ve been better, and sparkly, magic audio clips were directly ripped from other musicals or movies. The actress who played Cinderella was some nobody Billy didn’t recognize. And Steve…</p>
<p>Steve didn’t have any lines. No songs. The play was some reincarnation of the fairytale with a massive emphasis on womanhood or something, because the silence from the male actors was meant to be an obvious negative space or some shit—or so Steve explained years later.</p>
<p>But Steve wasn’t a negative space.</p>
<p>Dressed in a sparkly, icy blue costume complete with royal shoulder tassels and shiny medals, there couldn’t be a doubt who played the Prince. The most he did was waltz, chase the girl leaving the ball, and handle an overly sequined shoe the whole time…</p>
<p>But it’s where Billy learned that Steve could dance. Hell, he practically belonged in glitter and hair gel, and after the play—after Tommy and the others were too flabbergasted and terrified to ruin the play—the actors bowed and sprinted down the aisles to be the first out in the lobby. Hustling the students back to class became nearly impossible, with everyone chatting and congratulating the Cinderella and Prince for landing the parts. Wishing them broken limbs for the following nights’ performances. The magic was definitely lost in fluorescent light; Steve looked heavily painted in browns and yellows.</p>
<p>But Billy went to every performance. It was one of his first assignments, escorting Mrs. Harrington to her son’s play. She didn’t talk much, not until the actors were free to talk to people in the lobby. Billy got her there, and Steve took her home.</p>
<p>It’s the assignment that first got Neil Hargrove off his son’s back. <em>Go to Harrington’s little play. Butter and cheese the bitch so she serves up nice and warm. If you can’t handle a school play, you won’t be kept around afterward.</em></p>
<p>Perhaps Neil Hargrove didn’t anticipate Billy to fit in so well with the Harringtons. More than once over the years, he expressed—in face or voice—that the Harringtons were parasites. <em>They attach to you and take before you realize what’s happening. Don’t forget that we’re disposable to them.</em></p>
<p>But then the boss’s son died, and Billy Hargrove wasn’t disposable. When his primary tether to the family severed, he wasn’t cast out. He wasn’t thrown aside the night Steve opened the door, and he wasn’t fired or turned down when Mrs. Harrington opened it after Billy got the news in his father’s office. Billy became as good as a second son to Mrs. Harrington. Her primary guard and escort. Her ears, her time, her every need.</p>
<p>The cord that got severed was Billy’s to his father. And he used the new freedom to fly to a different city.</p>
<p>Nancy laughed, “Yeah, our first date was to see <em>Mamma Mia</em>.”</p>
<p>“<em>Okay</em>,” Steve groaned, leaning back against the wall. “I should’ve asked what your musical tastes were first.”</p>
<p>“I like musicals, fine,” she defended.</p>
<p>“You didn’t like <em>that</em> one.”</p>
<p>Nancy croaked, briefly searching for a way to answer. “I was surprised! Not in a bad way. In your choice.”</p>
<p>“It’s a cheesy rom-com! It’s a perfect date—for me and myself, I guess.”</p>
<p>Robin’s gaze moved between them. “I totally forgot that you two dated.”</p>
<p>The front door opened, inciting Steve to begin heaving himself to his feet. “Not long enough to justify me giving Mike the condom lecture. It’s up to Jonathan now. Sorry, Nance.”</p>
<p>Her back landed against her chair, lips pursed with thought as he greeted the newcomers. Joyce returned from the kitchen with a tray to restock the display case. “I’ll just say, it’s very professional of you to avoid that line with your students.”</p>
<p>Steve rolled his eyes while swiping a card. “You’re somewhat connected to all this. How would you talk about this with a fourteen year old?”</p>
<p>Joyce scoffed as she pushed pain au chocolat into their rows. “I didn’t expect my kids to venture into those waters until their thirties. I got lucky Nancy was Jonathan’s first.”</p>
<p>Steve’s jaw plummeted, ready to harangue Nancy with salutations for popping Jonathan’s cherry—</p>
<p>Billy faced him on the other side of the counter. Steve’s lashes fell to half-mast. “What?”</p>
<p>“I’m having a marvelous day, thanks for asking. We’re in a long weekend. Do you have Monday off?”</p>
<p>Steve wondered how far Joyce would lie with him if he said no, but Billy probably already knew the answer anyways. “Unlikely. I’m helping a student with a science project.”</p>
<p>Billy’s eyes moved in Dustin’s direction but he did not turn to look. “So I heard. Thing is, I used to know someone who liked theatre. Liked it a lot. Since you’re two of a kind, maybe you’ll let me know you.”</p>
<p>Steve hasn’t really picked up his jaw as he blurts, “Huh?”</p>
<p>Joyce snorted behind him and Steve suddenly felt out of his depth with a coffee shop for an audience. Eyes really did follow Billy everywhere. Jesus, these people come to a café only to get thirsty—</p>
<p>“I’m asking you out, Steve. Pay attention.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I…I got that. I think.”</p>
<p>“How about tonight? Just an easy dinner. I’ll cook. Your place?”</p>
<p>Steve held his gaze, searching. Billy’s lips parted and…he looked down, almost bashfully as his fingertips found the back of Steve’s hand on the counter….</p>
<p>
  <em>Tap. Tap…tap… Tap. P</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Tap. Tap… Tap. Tap. L</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Tap. Tap. Tap. S</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Please.</em>
</p>
<p>Something heavy coiled and throbbed in Steve’s abdomen. He swallowed painfully. “I don’t eat a lot of meat.”</p>
<p>“That’s fine. I make a divine tomato risotto.”</p>
<p>Steve frowned a little, his brows pinching together as his lips parted—</p>
<p>
  <em>Tap…Tap…Tap…Tap. Tap. 8</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Tap…Tap…Tap…Tap. Tap. 8</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Xo.</em>
</p>
<p>Steve’s jaw ticked as he watched Billy leave the shop. Joyce slid beside him. “A man who can cook is a great start.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Billy’s so hot that even the lesbian is like 0_0 Steve, you’re in danger.</p>
<p>But for real, I read <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/20837288/chapters/49534433">ToaStranger's Mob Boss Billy / fake marriage au</a> yesterday, and it absolutely SENT ME. I had to get back to my own mafia boys asap. 10/10 (more like 239048230 out of 10) recommend.</p>
<p>Billy is using shorthand Morse Code. 88 is for Love and Kisses, but I made it like Xoxo because there's something sassy about it that I like for Billy~</p>
<p>
  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Digging</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Steve expected Billy to let himself into his apartment. Steve did <em>not</em> anticipate for Billy to actually cook in his tiny kitchen that was really just a corner of his living room.</p><p>But when he unlocked the deadbolt and stepped into a lit apartment, there he was. Between the bells of his out-of-season door wreath, the sizzling on the stove, and Billy’s music tastes, the apartment was alive. At least the guy respected the neighbors by keeping the music at a casual volume.</p><p>Billy set down what was definitely his own kitchen knife to wipe his hands on a dishtowel while he watched Steve dismantle various parts of himself. Billy’s features warmed as Steve toed his shoes off, set his bag down, and began undoing his scarf and coat…</p><p>Not really knowing where to look, Steve’s gaze alighted on the hutch across the room, and the rabbits lounging on the sunbathing platform. “Hey, bugs…hey.”</p><p>Both heads perked up, but the brown one loped past the door Billy had opened for them and met Steve at the bottom of the ramp. “Hi, Loony.”</p><p>Billy peered at Steve, sitting on his ankles to hunch over his knees to coo at the bunny while the black one yawned on the platform, much slower to wake up. “Loony?”</p><p>“Loony and Toony. They’re the Looney Tunes.”</p><p>Billy reached for one of Steve’s ceramic, handle-less cups. From the weight and handmade quality of his dishware, one would suspect that’s where Steve’s money went. Except none of it matched. There weren’t two of anything. So Billy drank from his pale cup splattered with multicolored dots, and poured wine into a terra cotta one with a messy layer of blue and green glaze. “Bugs Bunny. I get it. What makes the brown one Loony?”</p><p>The black rabbit had arrived at the bottom of the ramp, nuzzling and chinning Steve’s fingers before he lifted her front half to reveal a white chest. “Toony wears a <em>tuxedo</em>.”</p><p>“Ah, yes,” Billy observed, mock sophistication as he wiggled the cup at him. Steve accepted it but he put his focus on the rabbits as Billy returned to the stove. While he stirred the risotto, he continued observing Steve with his bunnies. Toony nuzzled her chin on Steve’s hands while Loony stood on her hind legs to groom Steve’s nose.</p><p><em>Those rodents are the light of his life,</em> Billy thought with no small amount of wonder.</p><p>Billy spooned some of the tomato-saturated rice and summoned, “Come here and taste this.”</p><p>Steve eased himself to standing so he did not shock the rabbits. One of them sprang onto the couch while he came to the stove, taking the wooden spoon from him to taste. Billy asked and taunted, “Do you still need an ungodly amount of basil and salt?”</p><p>Steve’s throat moved around a swallow. He handed the spoon back. “It’s fine.”</p><p>Billy doubted that. As Steve went to the sink to wash his hands, Billy began conversationally, “Back at school, someone once asked me if I’d seen your party trick yet. They said you could eat a whole lime. The first party we both went to…you ate a lemon like an apple. The rind and all. Do you remember that?”</p><p>Steve flapped water off his hands before accepting the dishtowel from him. “Yeah.”</p><p>“How was that? I expected your mouth to bleed.”</p><p>“It didn’t. My jaw hurt for a week, though.”</p><p>Billy chuckled, the sound going deeper into his chest when Steve moved away from him. He didn’t know if it was a regular routine for Steve to sweep his floor when he came home, or if he was looking for things to do. Toony followed him around, hopping and flailing in the air when Steve curved the broom in a startling direction, and chased after him when he swept to the other end of the room.</p><p>Billy peeked at the skillet of simmering rice. Once the broth cooked off, it was done. A thing he had learned the very first time he’d met Mrs. Harrington.</p><p>He couldn’t remember why he’d gone there in the first place. Just that someone had shown him into the kitchen, of all places, and found Steve with his mother standing amongst crowded countertops.</p><p>She had been a shock. Because she was young. And kind. And…involved.</p><p>“Hargrove, right? Steve said you prefer <em>Billy</em>.”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am,” he’d replied in his customary way back then: dull fear wrapped up in charm. He had glanced at Steve chopping something, and the way the woman’s eyes followed his…Billy decided to not make the same decision his father would have. He decided to be absolutely terrified of Mrs. Harrington. A decision that might have been what kept him alive up till now.</p><p>“Ugh,” Steve had whined, raising his face to the ceiling. “The onions! They fight back!”</p><p>“Don’t cry on my account,” Billy had sassed, earning a smile from the matriarch.</p><p>On her way to the stove, she’d asked, “Have you ever had risotto, Billy?”</p><p>“No. Is it pasta?”</p><p>“Rice, actually. We’re developing a recipe.”</p><p>In Steve’s apartment, Billy’s gaze wandered over the various ingredients, taking inventory that he hadn’t forgotten anything. “You’ve got at least fifteen minutes before it’s done. You wanna shower?”</p><p>“No,” Steve groaned mildly as he crouched to sweep dirt and rabbit hair into the broom tray, “I’ll wait.”</p><p>Billy jaw muscle flexed. This just wouldn’t do.</p><p>“I’m not pulling a gun on you while you’re naked. Your rabbits are obviously fine with me around.”</p><p>Steve cast a glare at him while dumping the tray over the trash bin. “I know that.”</p><p>“Do you? Because you haven’t even said my name yet.”</p><p>Steve’s movements slowed as he pushed the broom handle to lean in the corner of the room. Billy pressed, “It’s just me here—”</p><p>“Is it?” Steve all but whispered, not looking at him. He could hear Billy exhale through his nose.</p><p>“It’s just me and my stepsister. Officially, I’m her guardian while she finishes high school. I told you that she started school here.”</p><p>He rotated to stir the rice and keep it from sticking to the bottom. Maybe Steve deflated a little without eyes on him, because he asked, “Why here? There are no—connections,” he finished quietly.</p><p>“Yeah. Getting here was a real bitch and a half,” Billy declared, making the skillet ring while knocking risotto off the spoon. “Your mom helped. You want to be a good son and ask how she’s doing? How’s the family? Because anyone with a brain doesn’t believe you’re dead.”</p><p>He rotated to find Steve looking sickly: eyes wandering the floor as he visibly tinged a pale, pale green. Billy moved before he meant to, coming to stand in front of him as Steve rubbed a hand over his chest, willing it to breathe regularly. That hand pushed the air in between them as he whispered, <em>“Don’t.”</em></p><p>“Can I help you sit down?” Billy’s arms remained partially outstretched, ready to catch him, should he keel over.</p><p>“What do you mean no one…?”</p><p>
  <em>Jesus, he can’t even say it?</em>
</p><p>Pleading expressions mirrored each other as Billy exclaimed with tragic wonder, “You’re so desperate to be this Sawyer guy.”</p><p>“Answer—the—” Steve’s strength gave out and he dislodged his glasses, rubbing his hands over his face. Billy gently took them off before they slipped to the floor. Steve brushed past him to sit on his thrifted couch. He held his face in his hands, what little privacy they granted while he gathered some composure.</p><p>Billy had never seen him do such a thing.</p><p>He slowly came to sit next to him, holding Steve’s glasses steady in his hands. He didn’t know what to do. Console or explain? Rage or beg.</p><p>The most fragile part of him, the broken pieces he’d been carrying for almost four years, just wanted to have dinner with his best friend. He led with that.</p><p>“I only meant…the funeral we had. All of it. It just…” Billy shook his head at his lap. “It wasn’t real. The others might’ve excused it to shock or something but…I as good as lived in that house. Your parents would’ve mourned you, but they didn’t.”</p><p>Steve remained hunched over his legs, but after a moment, he emerged enough to hold his face instead of shielding behind his hands. When he didn’t say anything, though, Billy added, “I’m not saying I replaced you. But there was a city to run.”</p><p>Steve picked up his meaning well enough. His voice came out raw. “Why are you here?”</p><p>Billy tilted the glasses in his hands, watching the light gleam across the tracks of metal rims. “I didn’t want a city.”</p><p>Steve’s shoulder blades expanded as he finally took a proper breath. “It’s been <em>years</em>—”</p><p>“I know.” He swallowed and leaned back, only to find a rabbit back there. Billy’s weight prompted Loony to wiggle out of his way and force access to Steve’s lap. Billy finished, “Seems safe to assume that I’m the only one you have to worry about barking up your tree.”</p><p>Steve sighed, holding Loony secure on his thighs. “Nothing’s safe.”</p><p>“Why? You think I stuck a pin on the map for anyone to find you? Did you forget why your dad hired us in the first place?”</p><p>The man sitting next to him only shook his head.</p><p>“When you’re good at finding people, you’re great at hiding them.”</p><p>Steve finally turned to properly look at him. Well, as much as he could. Billy nudged his glasses against his thigh. While he unfolded the earpieces, Steve remarked, “You didn’t erase you or your sister off the map. You still exist.”</p><p>Billy made a sound of acknowledgment. “By threads. Easily severed if I get wind of others so much as turning their heads this way.”</p><p>“That’s not true,” Steve replied as Toony jumped up to see what was going on up here. She froze with Billy’s hand on her fur, but her nose resumed its inquisitive wiggle. Steve gestured around them at his piles of books and framed art leaning against the walls. “It’s like stuff. The longer you’re here, it accumulates. Whether you mean for it to or not, they’re not just threads.”</p><p>Billy’s fingertips moved through soft fur while he considered that. “That’s not why you stayed here. You could’ve left but you didn’t.”</p><p>“Yeah. Well.” Steve seemed ready to leave it at that, until he finally added somberly, “I expected to die a long time before this. Guess I’ve always been ready. Your risotto’s burning.”</p><p>Billy blinked and frowned toward the stove. He couldn’t smell anything outside of tomato and garlic. But he stood to go scrape the spoon over the bottom of the pan, remarking, “I forgot you have a freakish sense of smell.”</p><p>Steve made an ambivalent sound behind him. Then, quietly, “ ‘S what happens when you can’t taste anything.”</p><p>Billy froze, even leaning away from the bubbling to allow his ears more space to process that. “What? At all?”</p><p>A shrug. “It’s gotten a little better, living here.”</p><p>Billy took his time lifting his jaw off the floor. Suddenly, a whole <em>lot</em> of things made sense, but he didn’t have the time to go over years of interactions right now. He simply uttered a soft, “Huh,” and turned the stove off.</p><p>Steve looked at him. “What?”</p><p>“Nothing. My cooking standards just relaxed, that’s all.”</p><p>“I can still smell or see if it’s burnt.”</p><p>“It won’t burn,” he scoffed. “Go shower. You smell like coffee and yeast.”</p><p>Steve didn’t really laugh…but he exhaled with a small smile. Billy could work with that.</p><p>The rabbits moved to their perch as Steve went into his bedroom. The soft sounds of clothing moved under Billy’s ceramic clatter of bowls and silverware…</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>He turned to see Steve leaning against the doorjamb of his room. His complexion had filled back out but his featured pinched a little, contemplative. He asked again, “Why are you here?”</p><p>Billy took a moment to turn off the sink and move the towel over his knife. So many things passed through his mind.</p><p>
  <em>I buried a friend.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I buried a box but not the person whose name is on it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I came ready with a shovel but…I’m not sure what I’m digging for anymore.</em>
</p><p>Instead he replied, “I lost a friend. Figured I might find a new one in this Sawyer person. If he’ll let me.”</p><p>He met Steve’s gaze, and they held the weight of a decade between them. He knew Steve wanted to say something, but at the pace he was going, they would be here all night and then some before he finally got to it.</p><p>
  <em>I just want to have dinner with you.</em>
</p><p>“Get washed up. I’ll make you a bowl.”</p><p>Steve sighed, his gaze falling as he nodded. “Okay.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>*longggg sigh* writing angst is exhausting.</p><p>Careful, Billy. You're the Rat King, after all.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://twitter.com/Pondermoniums">Twitter~</a><br/><a href="http://pondermoniums.tumblr.com/">Tumblr~</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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